SOCIAL    EVOLUTION 


SOCIAL  EVOLUTION 


BY 

BENJAMIN  KIDD 


NEW  EDITION  WITH  A  NEW  PREFACE 


Nero  IJork 
MACMILLAN  AND  00, 

AND    LONDON 

1894 

Ml  rights  reserved 


Copyright,  1894, 

BY 
MACMILLAN  &  CO. 

Reprinted  July,  1894. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER   I 

PAGB 

THE  OUTLOOK  1 


CHAPTER   II 
CONDITIONS  OF  HUMAN  PROGRESS     ......       29 

CHAPTER   III 

THERE    is    NO    RATIONAL    SANCTION    FOR    THE    CONDITIONS    OF 

PROGRESS         .........       59 

CHAPTER   IV 

THE  CENTRAL  FEATURE  OF  HUMAN  HISTORY      .         .         .         .81 

CHAPTER   V 

THE   FUNCTION  OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS  IN    THE    EVOLUTION   OF 

SOCIETY  .         .         .         .         .•         .         .         .         .         .97 

CHAPTER   VI 

WESTERN  CIVILISATION  •         .118 


vi  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION 


CHAPTER   VII 

PAGE 

WESTERN  CIVILISATION  (continued]    .         .         .         .         .         .146 


CHAPTER   VIII 
MODERN  SOCIALISM          .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .193 

CHAPTER   IX 

HUMAN  EVOLUTION  is  NOT  PRIMARILY  INTELLECTUAL          .         .     243 

CHAPTER   X 

CONCLUDING  KEMARKS     .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .288 

APPENDIX  I         .         ..." 331 

APPENDIX  II 335 

APPENDIX  III  341 


PREFACE  TO   THE   SECOND   AMERICAN 
EDITION 

ONE  of  the  most  remarkable  epochs  in  the  history  of 
human  thought  is  that  through  which  we  have  passed 
in  the  last  half  of  the  nineteenth  century.  The  revo- 
lution which  began  with  the  application  of  the  doctrines 
of  evolutionary  science,  and  which  received  its  first 
great  impetus  with  the  publication  of  Darwin's  Origin 
of  Species,  has  gradually  extended  in  scope  until  it  has 
affected  the  entire  intellectual  life  of  our  Western 
civilisation.  One  after  the  other  we  have  seen  the 
lower  sciences  revivified,  reconstructed,  transformed  by 
the  new  knowledge.  The  sciences  dealing  with  man 
in  society  have  naturally  been  the  last  to  be  affected, 
but  now  that  the  movement  has  reached  them  the 
changes  therein  promise  to  be  even  more  startling  in 
character.  History,  economics,  the  science  of  politics, 
and,  last  but  not  least  important,  the  attitude  of  science 
to  the  religious  life  and  the  religious  phenomena  of 


viii  SOCIAL   EVOLUTION 

mankind,  promise  to  be  profoundly  influenced.  The 
whole  plan  of  life  is,  in  short,  being  slowly  revealed  to 
us  in  a  new  light,  and  we  are  beginning  to  perceive 
that  it  presents  a  single  majestic  unity,  throughout 
every  part  of  which  the  conditions  of  law  and  orderly 
progress  reign  supreme. 

Nothing  is  more  remarkable  in  this  period  of  recon- 
struction than  the  change  which  is  almost  imperceptibly 
taking  place  in  the  minds  of  the  rising  generation 
respecting  the  great  social  and  religious  problem  of  our 
time.  We  have  lived  through  a  period  when  the  very 
foundations  of  human  thought  have  been  rebuilt.  To 
many  who  in  the  first  stage  saw  only  the  confusion 
occasioned  by  the  moving  of  old  landmarks,  the  time 
has  been  one  of  perplexity  and  changing  hope.  But 
those  whose  lot  it  has  been  to  come  later  have  already 
an  inspiring  and  uplifting  conception  of  the  character 
of  the  work  which  the  larger  knowledge  is  destined 
eventually  to  accomplish.  That  the  moral  law  is  the 
unchanging  law  of  progress  in  human  society  is  the 
lesson  which  appears  to  be  written  over  all  things.  No 
school  of  theology  has  ever  sought  to  enforce  this  teach- 
ing with  the  directness  and  emphasis  which  it  appears 
that  evolutionary  science  will  in  the  future  be  justified 
in  doing.  In  the  silent  and  strenuous  rivalry  in  which 
every  section  of  the  race  is  of  necessity  continually 
engaged,  permanent  success  appears  to  be  invariably 
associated  with  the  ethical  and  moral  conditions  favour- 


PREFACE  ix 

able  to  the  maintenance  of  a  high  standard  of  social 
efficiency,  and  with  those  conditions  only. 

No  one  who  engages  in  a  serious  study  of  the 
period  of  transition  through  which  our  Western 
civilisation  is  passing  at  the  present  time  can  resist 
the  conclusion  that  we  are  rapidly  approaching  a  time 
when  we  shall  be  face  to  face  with  social  and  political 
problems,  graver  in  character  and  more  far-reaching  in 
extent  than  any  which  have  been  hitherto  encountered. 
These  problems  are  not  peculiar  to  any  nationality 
included  in  our  civilisation.  But  in  the  method  of 
their  solution,  the  social  efficiency  of  the  various 
sections  of  the  Western  peoples  will  probably  be  put 
to  a  severer  test  than  any  which  it  has  yet  had  to 
undergo.  Those  who  realise,  however  dimly,  the 
immense  part  which  the  English-speaking  peoples — if 
true  to  their  own  traditions — are  not  improbably 
destined  to  play  in  the  immediate  future  of  the  world, 
will  feel  how  great  a  gain  any  advance  may  be  which 
enables  us  through  the  methods  of  modern  science  to 
obtain  a  clear  perception  of  the  stern,  immutable  con- 
ditions of  moral  fitness  and  uprightness  through  which 
alone  a  people  can  long  continue  to  play  a  great  pait 
on  the  stage  of  the  world.  No  other  race  has  ever 
looked  out  upon  such  an  opportunity  as  presents  itself 
before  these  peoples  in  the  twentieth  century.  Will 
they  prove  equal  to  it  ?  The  world  will  be  poorer 
indeed  and  the  outlook  for  our  civilisation  gloomy  if 


SOCIAL  EVOLUTION 


they  fail.  Those  of  us  who  believe  that  they  will  not 
fail,  feel  that  anything  which  helps  the  world  to  a 
better  understanding  of  the  great  permanent  causes 
which  make  for  the  improvement  or  decay  of  peoples, 
must  needs  act  as  a  strengthening  and  bracing  influ- 
ence in  the  work  which  is  before  us. 


CHAPTER  I 

THE   OUTLOOK 

To  the  thoughtful  mind  the  outlook  at  the  close  of  the 
nineteenth  century  is  profoundly  interesting.  History 
can  furnish  no  parallel  to  it.  The  problems  which  loom 
across  the  threshold  of  the  new  century  surpass  in 
magnitude  any  that  civilisation  has  hitherto  had  to 
encounter.  We  seem  to  have  reached  a  time  in  which 
there  is  abroad  in  men's  minds  an  instinctive  feeling 
that  a  definite  stage  in  the  evolution  of  Western  civilisa- 
tion is  drawing  to  a  close,  and  that  we  are  entering  on 
a  new  era.  Yet  one  of  the  most  curious  features  of  the 
time  is  the  almost  complete  absence  of  any  clear  indica- 
tion from  those  who  speak  in  the  name  of  science  and 
authority  as  to  the  direction  in  which  the  path  of 
future  progress  lies.  On  every  side  in  those  departments 
of  knowledge  which  deal  with  social  affairs  change,  transi- 
tion, and  uncertainty  are  apparent.  Despite  the  great 
advances  which  science  has  made  during  the  past 
century  in  almost  every  other  direction,  there  is,  it  must 
be  confessed,  no  science  of  human  society  properly  so 
called.  What  knowledge  there  is  exists  in  a  more  or 
less  chaotic  state  scattered  under  many  heads ;  and  it  is 
not  improbably  true,  however  much  we  may  hesitate  to 

S  B 


2  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

acknowledge  it,  that  the  generalisations  which  have 
recently  tended  most  to  foster  a  conception  of  the 
unity  underlying  the  laws  operating  amid  the  complex 
social  phenomena  of  our  time,  have  not  been  those  which 
have  come  from  the  orthodox  scientific  school.  They 
have  rather  been  those  advanced  by  that  school  of  social 
revolutionists  of  which  Karl  Marx  is  the  most  command- 
ing figure.  Judged  by  the  utterances  of  her  spokesmen, 
science,  whose  great  triumph  in  the  nineteenth  century 
has  been  the  tracing  of  the  steps  in  the  evolution  of  life 
up  to  human  society,  stands  now  dumb  before  the 
problems  presented  by  society  as  it  exists  around  us. 
As  regards  its  further  evolution  she  appears  to  have  no 
clear  message. 

In  England  we  have  a  most  remarkable  example  of 
the  attitude  of  science  when  she  is  appealed  to  for 
aid  and  enlightenment  in  those  all-engrossing  problems 
with  which  society  is  struggling.  One  of  the  monu- 
mental works  of  our  time  is  the  "  Synthetic  Philosophy  " 
of  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  begun  early  in  the  second 
half  of  the  century,  and  not  yet  completed.  It  is  a 
stupendous  attempt  not  only  at  the  unification  of 
knowledge,  but  at  the  explanation  in  terms  of  evolu- 
tionary science  of  the  development  which  human  society 
is  undergoing,  and  towards  the  elucidation  of  which 
development  it  is  rightly  recognised  that  all  the  work  of 
science  in  lower  fields  should  be  preliminary.  Yet  so 
little  practical  light  has  the  author  apparently  succeeded 
in  throwing  on  the  nature  of  the  social  problems  of  our 
time,  that  his  investigations  and  conclusions  are,  accord- 
ing as  they  are  dealt  with  by  one  side  or  the  other,  held 
to  lead  up  to  the  opinions  of  the  two  diametrically 
opposite  camps  of  individualists  and  collectivists  into 
which  society  is  slowly  becoming  organised. 


THE  OUTLOOK 


From  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  in  England,  who  himself 
regards  the  socialistic  tendencies  of  the  times  with  dis- 
like if  not  with  alarm,  and  whose  views  are  thus  shared 
by  some  and  opposed  by  others  of  his  own  followers,  to 
Professor  Schaffle  in  Germany,  who  regards  the  future 
as  belonging  to  purified  socialism,  we  have  every 
possible  and  perplexing  variety  of  opinion.  The  nega- 
tive and  helpless  position  of  science  is  fairly  exemplified 
in  England  by  Professor  Huxley,  who  in  some  of  his 
recent  writings  has  devoted  himself  to  reducing  the 
aims  of  the  two  conflicting  parties  of  the  day — indi- 
vidualists and  socialists — to  absurdity  and  impossibility 
respectively.  These  efforts  are  not,  however,  to  be 
regarded  as  preliminary  to  an  attempt  to  inspire  us 
with  any  clear  idea  as  to  where  our  duty  lies  in  the 
circumstances.  After  this  onslaught  his  own  faith  in 
the  future  grows  obscure,  and  he  sends  his  readers  on 
their  way  with,  for  guiding  principle,  no  particular  faith 
or  hope  in  anything.1 

Yet  that  the  times  are  pregnant  of  great  changes  the 
least  observant  must  be  convinced.  Even  those  who 
indulge  in  these  destructive  criticisms  seem  to  be  con- 
scious of  this.  Professor  Huxley  himself,  despite  his 
negative  conclusions,  is  almost  as  outspoken  as  a  Nihilist 
in  his  dissatisfaction  with  the  existing  state  of  things. 
"  Even  the  best  of  modern  civilisations,"  said  he  recently, 
"  appears  to  me  to  exhibit  a  condition  of  mankind  which 
neither  embodies  any  worthy  ideal  nor  even  possesses 
the  merit  of  stability.  I  do  not  hesitate  to  express  the 
opinion  that  if  there  is  no  hope  of  a  large  improvement 
of  the  condition  of  the  greater  part  of  the  human  family ; 

1  See  his  "  Government :  Anarchy  or  Regimentation,"  Nineteenth 
Century,  May  1890.  See  also  his  Social  Diseases  and  Worse  Remedies, 
pp.  13-51. 


4  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

if  it  is  true  that  the  increase  of  knowledge,  the  winning 
of  a  greater  dominion  over  nature  which  is  its  con- 
sequence, and  the  wealth  which  follows  upon  that 
dominion  are  to  make  no  difference  in  the  extent  and 
the  intensity  of  want  with  its  concomitant  physical  and 
moral  degradation  amongst  the  masses  of  the  people,  I 
should  hail  the  advent  of  some  kindly  comet  which 
would  sweep  the  whole  affair  away  as  a  desirable  con- 
summation."1 It  is  the  large  body  of  thought  which 
this  kind  of  feeling  inspires  which  is  now  stirring 
European  society  to  its  depths,  and  nothing  is  more 
certain  than  that  it  will  have  to  be  reckoned  with.  M. 
de  Laveleye,  a  few  years  ago,  put  the  feeling  into  words. 
The  message  of  the  eighteenth  century  to  man  was,  he 
said,  "  Thou  shalt  cease  to  be  the  slave  of  nobles  and 
despots  who  oppress  thee ;  thou  art  free  and  sovereign." 
But  the  problem  of  our  times  is :  "  It  is  a  grand  thing 
to  be  free  and  sovereign,  but  how  is  it  that  the  sovereign 
often  starves  ?  how  is  it  that  those  who  are  held  to  be 
the  source  of  power  often  cannot,  even  by  hard  work, 
provide  themselves  with  the  necessaries  of  life  ? " 2  Mr. 
Henry  George  only  fairly  presses  the  matter  home  by 
asking  whither  in  such  circumstances  our  progress  is 
leading ;  for,  "  to  educate  men  who  must  be  condemned  to 
poverty  is  but  to  make  them  restive ;  to  base  on  a  state 
of  most  glaring  social  inequality  political  institutions 
under  which  men  are  theoretically  equal  is  to  stand  a 
pyramid  on  its  apex."8 

Those  who  wish  to  see  the  end  of  the  present  condition 
of  society  have,  so  far,  taken  most  part  in  the  argument. 

1  K  Government :  Anarchy  or  Regimentation,"  by  Professor  Huxley, 
Nineteenth  Century,  May  1890. 

1  u  Communism : "  by  Emile  de  Laveleye,  Contemporary  Review, 
March  1890. 

'  Progress  and  Poverty,  Introduction. 


THE  OUTLOOK 


Those  who  have  no  desire  for  change  are  of  the  class 
which  always  waits  for  action  rather  than  argument. 
But  a  large  section  of  the  community,  probably  the 
largest   section,  while   remaining   unconvinced  by  the 
arguments  used  and  more  or  less  distrusting  the  methods 
proposed,  feel  that  some  change  is  inevitable.     It  is  with 
these  will  probably  rest  the  decisive  part  in  shaping  the 
course  of  future  events.     But  at  present  they  simply  sit 
still  and   wait.     They  have   no   indication   as   to   the 
direction  in  which  the  right  path  lies.     They  look  in 
vain  to  science  and  authority  for  any  hint  as  to  duty. 
They  are  without  a  faith,  for  there  is  at  the  present  time 
no  science  of  human  society.     Many  of  the  spokesmen 
of  science  who  concern  themselves  with  social  problems 
continue  to  speak  and  act  as  if  they  conceived  that  their  i 
duty  to  society  was  to  take  away  its  religious  beliefs.  j 
But  it  is  not  that  they  have  any  faith  of  their  own  to  " 
offer  instead ;  they  apparently  have  themselves  no  grasp 
of  the  problems  with  which  the  world  is  struggling  as 
best   it   can.     Science   has  obviously  herself  no  clear 
perception  of  the   nature  of  the  social   evolution  we  > 
are  undergoing.     She  has  made  no  serious  attempt  to  " 
explain   the   phenomenon  of  our  Western  civilisation. 
We  are  without  any  real  knowledge  of  the  laws  of  its 
life  and  development  or  of  the  principles  which  under- 
lie the  process  of  social  evolution  which  is  proceeding 
around  us.1 

To  many  the  spirit  of  the  French  Revolution  which 

So  far  the  larger  part  of  the  most  useful  work  of  the  century  in  the 
department  of  sociology  appears  to  have  been  merely  destructive.  "  It 
may  be  stated,"  said  Mr.  Leslie  Stephen  recently,  "  that  there  is  no  science 
of  sociology  properly  scientific — merely  a  heap  of  vague  empirical  observa- 
tions, too  flimsy  to  be  useful  in  strict  logical  inference." — Presidential 
Address,  Annual  Meeting  of  the  Social  and  Political  Education  League, 
March  1892. 


6  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP 

caused  so  universal  a  feeling  of  unrest  at  the  end  of  the 
last  century  seems  to  be  again  unloosed,  and  after  an 
epoch  of  progress  unexampled  in  the  history  of  the  world 
we  would  appear  to  have  returned  to  the  discussion  of 
the  ideals  of  society  which  moved  men's  minds  at  that 
period  of  upheaval.  Nothing  can,  however,  be  more  out 
of  place  than  comparisons  which  are  instituted  between 
society  one  hundred  years  ago  and  at  the  present  time. 
We  have  little  in  common  with  this  past.  It  may  be 
searched  in  vain  for  any  clue  to  the  solution  of  the 
problems  which  confront  us  in  the  future.  The  great 
political  revolution  which  began  one  hundred  years  ago, 
and  which  has  been  in  progress  in  England  and  on  the 
Continent  throughout  the  nineteenth  century,  has  well- 
nigh  attained  its  ends.  The  middle  classes  having 
succeeded  in  enfranchising  themselves  have  been  in  turn 
driven  to  enfranchise  the  lower  classes ;  and  with  the 
possession  of  universal  education  and  universal  suffrage, 
and  the  long  list  of  measures  tending  the  more  fully  to 
secure  the  political  enfranchisement  of  the  people  which 
has  accompanied  them,  this  revolution  is,  to  all  intents, 
complete.  Ave  have  in  reality  entered  on  a  new  stage  of 
social  evolution  in  which  the  minds  of  men  are  moving 
towards  other  goals ;  and  those  political  parties  which 
still  stand  confronting  the  people  with  remnants  of  the 
political  programme  of  political  equality  are  beginning 
to  find  that  the  world  is  rapidly  moving  beyond  their 
standpoint. 

In  other  directions,  too,  the  changes  have  been  vast 
Since  the  beginning  of  the  century  applied  science  has 
transformed  the  world.  Amongst  the  advanced  nations, 
the  great  wave  of  industrial  expansion  which  follows  in 
its  wake  is  slowly  but  inevitably  submerging  the  old 
landmarks  of  society,  and  preparing  for  us  a  world 


THE  OUTLOOK 


where  the  old  things,  material  and  social  as  well  as 
political,  have  passed  away,  and  in  which  the  experience 
of  the  past  is  no  longer  a  reliable  guide.  The  marvellous 
development  of  practical  science,  the  revolution  in 
industry  which  it  has  effected,  the  application  of  steam 
and  electricity  on  an  immense  scale  to  machinery,  the 
enormous  extension  of  railways,  telegraphs,  and  other 
means  of  rapid  communication,  the  development  of 
commerce  to  a  degree  never  before  imagined,  are  amongst 
the  wonders  of  the  present  age.  They  are  omy  the 
earnest  apparently  of  the  future.  Even  a  superficial 
acquaintance  with  the  means  and  methods  of  modern 
science  can  hardly  fail  to  leave  the  conviction  that  no 
limit  can  be  set  to  the  possibilities  of  even  the  near 
future,  and  that  the  achievements  of  the  past,  extra- 
ordinary as  they  have  been,  are  not  improbably  destined 
to  be  eclipsed  at  no  distant  date. 

But  it  is  the  more  slowly  ripening  fruits  of  the 
industrial  revolution  which  arrest  attention.  Social 
forces  new,  strange,  and  altogether  immeasurable  have 
been  released  among  us.  Only  one  hundred  years  ago, 
nations  and  communities  were  as  distant  from  each  other 
in  time  as  they  were  at  the  Christian  era.  Since  then 
the  ends  of  the  world  have  been  drawn  together,  and 
civilised  society  is  becoming  one  vast  highly  organised 
and  inter-dependent  whole — the  wants  and  requirements 
of  every  part  regulated  by  economic  laws  bewildering 
in  their  intricacy — with  a  nervous  system  of  five  million 
miles  of  telegraph  wire,  and  an  arterial  system  of  rail-  > 
ways  and  ocean  steamships,  along  which  the  currents 
of  trade  and  population  flow  with  a  rapidity  and  regu- 
larity previously  unimagined.  The  old  bonds  of  society 
have  been  loosened ;  old  forces  are  becoming  extinct ; 
whole  classes  have  been  swept  away,  and  new  classes 


8  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

have  arisen.  The  great  army  of  industrial  workers 
throughout  the  world  is  almost  entirely  a  growth  of 
the  past  hundred  years.  Vast  displacements  of  popula- 
tion have  taken  place,  and  are  still  taking  place.  The 
expansion  of  the  towns,  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
features  of  the  industrial  revolution,  still  continues  un- 
abated, no  less  in  America  and  Australia  than  in 
England,  Germany,  and  France ;  and  civilisation  is 
everywhere  massing  together,  within  limited  areas, 
large  populations  extremely  sensitive  to  innumerable 
social  stimuli  which  did  not  exist  at  the  beginning  of 
the  century.  The  air  is  full  of  new  battle-cries,  of  the 
sound  of  the  gathering  and  marshalling  of  new  forces 
and  the  reorganisation  of  old  ones.  Socialism  seems  to 
many  minds  to  have  been  born  again,  and  to  be  enter- 
ing on  the  positive  and  practical  stage.  It  has  ceased 
to  be  a  theory,  it  has  begun  to  be  a  kind  of  religion. 

Nor  does  the  new  faith  appear  to  be  without  its 
credentials  and  its  aids  to  belief.  It  has,  in  the  pro- 
ducts of  the  times,  a  background  as  luridly  effective  as 
any  which  stirred  the  imagination  of  the  early  Chris- 
tians in  the  days  of  degenerate  Kome.  We  are  told 
that  the  immense  progress  of  the  century  and  the 
splendid  conquests  of  science  have  brought  no  corre- 
sponding gain  to  the  masses.  That,  on  the  contrary,  to 
the  wage -earning  class,  which  carries  society  on  its 
shoulders,  the  century  has  been  in  many  respects  a 
period  of  progressive  degeneration.  That  the  labourer 
has  ceased  to  be  a  man  as  nature  made  him ;  and  that, 
ignorant  of  all  else,  he  is  only  occupied  with  some  small 
detail  in  the  huge  mill  of  industry.  That  even  the 
skilled  worker  holds  desperately  to  the  small  niche  into 
which  he  has  been  fitted,  knowing  that  to  lose  his  place 
is  to  become  part  of  the  helpless  flotsam  and  jetsam  of 


THE  OUTLOOK 


society,  tossed  to  and  fro  on  the  tide  of  poverty  and 
misery.  The  adherents  of  the  new  faith  ask,  What 
avails  it  that  the  waste  places  of  the  earth  have  been 
turned  into  highways  of  commerce,  if  the  many  still 
work  and  want,  and  only  the  few  have  leisure  and 
grow  rich  ?  What  does  it  profit  the  worker  that 
knowledge  grows,  if  all  the  appliances  of  science  are 
not  to  lighten  his  labour?  Wealth  may  accumulate, 
and  public  and  private  magnificence  may  have 
reached  a  point  never  before  attained  in  the  history 
of  the  world;  but  wherein  is  society  the  better, 
it  is  asked,  if  the  Nemesis  of  poverty  still  sits  like  a 
hollow-eyed  spectre  at  the  feast?  The  wheels  of  the 
world  go  round  quicker,  for  science  stokes  the  furnace ; 
but  men  work  sullenly.  A  new  patrician  class,  we 
are  told,  has  arisen  with  all  the  power,  but  none 
of  the  character  or  the  responsibilities  of  the  old. 
We  hear  of  the  "  robber  knights  of  capital,"  and  of  the 
"  unclean  brigand  aristocracy  of  the  Stock  Exchange." 
We  are  told  that  they  who  profit  are  the  organisers 
who  set  the  machine  to  work,  who  pull  the  levers, 
study  its  pulses,  and  know  its  wants.  They  divide 
and  govern,  and  the  world  works  that  they  may 
grow  rich. 

What  wonder  that  with  such  a  creed  the  new  battle- 
cries  have  an  ominous  sound.  We  hear  no  longer  of  the 
privileged  and  the  people,  but  of  the  idlers  and  the 
workers,  the  usurpers  and  the  disinherited,  the  robbers 
and  the  robbed.  Many  who  think  that  we  have  heard 
all  this  before,  and  who  are  relieved  to  remember  that 
socialism  is  as  old  as  Fourier,  Robert  Owen,  and  Louis 
Blanc,  leave  out  of  consideration  what  is  an  all-important 
factor  at  the  present  time.  In  England,  when  early  in 
the  century  Robert  Owen's  theories  were  discussed,  and 


io  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

for  long  after,  the  working  classes,  it  must  be  remem- 
bered, were  almost  without  political  rights  of  any  kind. 
They  lived  like  brutes,  huddled  together  in  wretched 
dwellings,  without  education  and  without  any  voice  in 
politics  or  in  the  management  of  public  affairs.  Since 
then  all  this  has  gradually  been  changed.  One  of  the 
most  striking  and  significant  signs  of  the  times  is  the 
spectacle  of  Demos,  with  these  new  battle-cries  ringing 
in  his  ears,  gradually  emerging  from  the  long  silence  of 
social  and  political  serfdom.  Not  now  does  he  come 
with  the  violence  of  revolution  foredoomed  to  failure, 
but  with  the  slow  and  majestic  progress  which  marks  a 
natural  evolution.  He  is  no  longer  unwashed  and 
illiterate,  for  we  have  universal  education.  He  is  no 
longer  muzzled  and  without  political  power,  for  we  have 
universal  suffrage.  With  his  advent,  socialism  has 
ceased  to  be  a  philanthropic  sentiment  merely.  It  still 
enlists  the  sympathies  of  many  of  the  best  minds,  but 
it  has  become  at  the  same  time  a  direct  appeal  to  the 
selfish  instincts  of  a  considerable  portion  of  the  com- 
munity wielding  political  power.1  The  advent  of  Demos 
is  the  natural  result  of  a  long  series  of  concessions,  be- 
ginning in  England  with  the  passing  of  the  Factory 
Acts,  and  the  legalisation  of  combination,  and  leading 
gradually  up  to  the  avowedly  socialistic  legislation  for 
which  the  times  appear  to  be  ripening. 

But  so  far  all  the  changes  are  said  to  have  only  in- 
creased the  power  without  materially  lessening  the  misery 
of  the  working  classes ;  and  the  goal  towards  which  all 
efforts  are  directed  seems  still  far  off.  Science  may  be 

1  Communism,  u  M.  de  Laveleye  very  truly  points  out,  tends  to  be 
specially  attractive  to  two  classes  of  men, — reformers  and  the  workers. 
"  The  former  are  drawn  to  it  by  a  sentiment  of  justice,  the  latter  by  their 
own  necessities." 


THE  OUTLOOK  11 


content  to  sit  still  and  wait  for  the  arrival  of  the  avenging 
comet  to  put  an  end  to  prevailing  misery ;  but  it  is  not 
to  be  expected  that  those  who  have  to  bear  and  suffei 
will,  with  the  power  they  at  present  possess,  be  content  to 
be  equally  patient  should  they  discover  themselves  to  be 
equally  hopeless.  Nay  more,  it  is  not  even  likely  that 
the  average  political  mind,  which  is  always  in  favour  of 
anything  which  it  really  believes  to  be  for  the  improve- 
ment and  uplifting  of  society,  will  be  content  to  remain 
passive ;  there  are  signs  that  it  is  being  deeply  moved 
by  what  is  taking  place  around  us. 

We  are  told  that  society  in  its  present  state  does  not 
possess  the  elements  of  stability.  Those  who  are  de- 
termined that  something  shall  be  done  are  not  without 
able  leaders ;  and,  as  has  been  well  remarked,  misdirected 
genius  in  circumstances  like  the  present  beats  gun- 
powder hollow  as  an  explosive.1  The  new  creed  is 
indeed  already  forging  its  weapons.  The  worker  is 
beginning  to  discover  that  what  he  has  lost  as  an 
individual,  he  has  gained  as  a  class ;  and  that  by  organ- 
isation he  may  obtain  the  power  of  meeting  his  masters 
on  more  equal  terms.  The  shrinkage  of  space,  the  per- 
fecting of  the  means  of  communication,  the  consolidation 
of  society,  the  power  of  the  press  and  public  opinion 
are  all  factors  and  forces  as  much  on  his  side  as  on  the 
other,  and  we  are  beginning  to  see  the  result.  Even 
national  lines  of  demarcation  are  disappearing.  Society 
is  being  organised  by  classes  into  huge  battalions,  the 
avowed  object  of  which  is  the  making  war  on  each 
other.  We  have  syndicates,  corporations,  and  federa- v" 
tions  of  capital  on  one  side,  and  societies,  trades-unions,  ( 
and  federations  of  labour  on  the  other. 

But  this  has  been  already  not  only  anticipated  but 

1  Huxley,  Critiques  and  Addresses — "Administrative  Nihilism." 


12  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

described  for  us  by  Karl  Marx  and  his  disciples.  We 
are  told  that  it  is  but  part  of  a  great  natural  develop- 
ment which  society  is  undergoing,  the  steps  in  which 
can  be  foreseen,  and  the  end  of  which  is  inevitable. 
The  growing  enslavement  and  degradation  of  the 
workers,  the  development  of  a  class  feeling  amongst 
them,  accompanied  by  combinations  and  organisations 
against  the  common  enemy,  extending  not  only  through- 
out the  community,  but  across  national  boundaries,  are 
amongst  the  phenomena  which  we  have  been  led  to 
expect.  We  are  told  that,  on  the  other  side,  we  must 
also  expect  to  see  the  smaller  capitalists  continue  to  be 
extinguished  by  the  larger,  until,  with  the  accumulation 
of  wealth  in  the  hands  of  a  few  colossal  capitalists, 
society  at  length  will  feel  the  anarchy  of  production  in- 
tolerable, and  the  end  of  a  natural  process  of  transforma- 
tion must  come  with  the  seizing  of  political  control  by 
the  proletariat,  and  the  turning  by  them  of  the  means  of 
production  into  state  property.  After  which,  we  must 
look  forward,  we  are  told,  to  the  abolition  of  all  class 
distinctions  and  class  antagonisms,  the  extinction  of  an 
exploiting  class  within  the  community,  and  the  dis- 
appearance of  the  individual  struggle  for  existence. 

All  this  has  been  described  with  a  knowledge  of 
social  phenomena  and  a  grasp  of  principle  to  which  many 
of  its  critics  so  far  cannot  lay  claim.  The  larger  portion 
of  the  community,  however,  admitting  the  evils  al- 
though remaining  unconvinced  by  the  arguments,  stand 
in  helpless  confusion  of  mind  and  watch  the  forces  draw- 
ing together,  and  the  battle  being  set  in  array  between 
them.  To  give  or  withhold  their  support  to  one  or 
other  of  the  combatants,  often  means  success  or  failure 
for  the  time  being  to  that  side,  and  their  support  is 
accordingly  eagerly  solicited  by  each  in  turn.  But 


THE  OUTLOOK  13 


these  who  may  have  to  determine  the  issue  are  without 
knowledge  of  the  first  principles  of  the  struggle.  They 
look  in  vain  for  any  authoritative  definition  of  the  laws 
or  principles  which  underlie  it,  for  any  clear  indication  as 
to  which  side  is  right  and  which  is  wrong,  or  for  any 
definite  teaching  as  to  whither  our  Western  civilisation 
as  a  whole  is  tending. 

Amongst  other  noteworthy  aspects  of  the  time  not 
the  least  remarkable  is  the  revolution  which  is  silently 
taking  place  in  men's  minds  with  regard  to  matters 
previously  held  to  be  more  or  less  outside  the  sphere  of 
political  discussion.  The  alteration  which  is  taking 
place  in  the  standpoint  from  which  religion  is  regarded 
is  very  remarkable.  The  change  is  not  exclusively,  nor 
perhaps  even  principally  confined  to  those  professing 
religion,  and  it  affects  men  of  different  views  in  widely 
different  ways.  The  outward  indications  might  appear 
at  first  sight  puzzling  and  conflicting  in  the  extreme, 
and  it  is  not  until  they  are  grouped  and  compared  that 
they  are  seen  to  all  belong  to  one  wide  and  general 
movement  of  opinion.  Within  the  Churches  one  of  the  -• 
signs  of  this  change  is  visible  in  a  growing  tendency  to  : 
assert  that  religion  is  concerned  with  man's  actual  state  ,' 
in  this  world  as  well  as  with  his  possible  state  in  the  • 
next;  in  the  desire  to  dwell  upon  the  features  which 
ecclesiastical  organisations  have  in  common  rather  than 
upon  those  features  in  which  they  differ  from  each 
other ;  and  in  the  increasing  tendency  to  assert  that  the 
Churches  should  be  judged  rather  by  their  deeds  than  by 
their  doctrines. 

We  are  beginning  to  hear  from  many  quarters  that 
the  social  question  is  at  bottom  a  religious  question,  and 
that  to  its  solution  it  behoves  the  Churches  in  the 
interests  of  society  to  address  themselves.  The  head  of 


14  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  no  less  than  the  head  of  the 
Salvation  Army,  seems  to  have  felt  the  influence  of  the 
spirit  which  is  abroad.  Both  in  the  public  press  and  in 
the  pulpit,  from  nonconformity  and  orthodoxy  alike,  we 
have  the  note  sounded  in  varying  keys,  that,  after  all, 
Christianity  was  intended  to  save  not  only  men  but 
man,  and  that  its  mission  should  be  to  teach  us  not 
only  how  to  die  as  individuals  but  how  to  live  as 
members  of  society.1  So  pronounced  is  the  change,  that 
when  from  time  to  time  a  protest  to  the  contrary  comes 
from  within  the  Church  itself,  and  we  are  told,  as  we 
recently  have  been,  by  one  of  the  dignitaries  of  the 
Anglican  Church  that  it  is  "  a  mistake  to  attempt  to 
turn  Christ's  kingdom  into  one  of  this  world,2  that  the 
Regnum  Hominis  can  never  be  the  Civitas  Dei,  and 
that  the  state  does  not  and  could  not  exist  on  Christian 
principles,  we  are  startled  as  if  we  had  caught  an  echo 
from  the  Contrat  Social,  and  heard  again,  and  from  the 
other  side,  Rousseau's  doctrine  that  the  Christian  cannot 
be  a  true  citizen. 

But  it  is  not  within  the  Churches  but  rather  out- 
side them  that  the  symptoms  of  the  change  are  most 
noticeable.  Many  who  have  watched  the  course  of  the 
struggle  which  has  been  waged  between  Religion  and 
Science  within  the  century,  and  who  have  realised  to 
the  full  the  force  of  the  new  weapons  which  the  latter 
has  brought  to  bear  against  her  old  antagonist  have  cause 
for  reflection  at  the  present  time.  Some  amongst  them 
have  already  begun  to  see  that  the  result  is  likely  to  be 
different  from  what  either  side  expected,  and  strangely 

1  Vide  Sermon  preached  before  Oxford  University,  llth  December 
1887,  by  Rev.  Prebendary  Eyton. 

2  Bishop   of    Peterborough,    Address   at   the    Diocesan    Conference, 
Leicester,  25th  October  1889. 


THE  OUTLOOK  15 


different  from  that  which  the  more  impulsive  spokes- 
men of  science  anticipated.  It  is  not  too  much  to  assert 
that  we  are  at  the  present  time  entering  on  an  era  in 
which  we  are  about  to  witness  one  of  the  most  striking 

o 

revolutions  in  the  aspect  of  the  conflict  which  has  taken 
place  since  it  first  began. 

There  are  two  movements  of  opinion  which  have 
deeply  affected  the  inner  religious  life  of  the  present 
century.  The  first  has  its  cause  in  what  may  be  called 
the  new  revelation  of  the  doctrine  of  evolution ;  the 
other  has  received  its  impetus  from  the  historic  criticism 
of  the  Bible  by  various  workers  from  Strauss  to  Kenan. 
Whatever  may  be  the  opinion  of  individuals  there  can  be 
little  doubt  that  the  tendency  of  both  these  movements 
has  been  generally  considered  to  be  on  the  whole 
profoundly  an ti- religious.  There  have  been  indeed 
many  enlightened  minds  so  far  affected  as  to  regard 
the  new  knowledge  as  having  definitely  and  finally 
closed  the  controversy  between  Religion  and  Science  by 
the  annihilation  of  one  of  the  antagonists.  Neverthe- 
less, when  all  due  allowance  is  made  for  these  move- 
ments of  opinion  there  is  a  tendency  of  the  time  which 
ought  not  to  escape  the  notice  of  an  observant  mind. 
Some  conception  of  the  direction  in  which  we  are 
travelling  begins  to  shape  itself  when  the  present  is 
contrasted  with  the  past.  Perhaps  one  of  the  first 
things  which  arrest  attention  on  a  comparison  of  the 
condition  of  thought  outside  the  Churches  on  religious 
questions  at  the  present  and  at  the  beginning  of  the 
century  is  the  disappearance  of  that  condition  of  mind 
represented  at  the  period  of  the  French  Revolution  by 
the  assured  and  aggressive  objector  to  religion.  It  is 
not  that  the  dogmas  of  religion  are  more  widely  adhered 
to,  but  that  this  state  of  mind  has  been  to  a  large 


1 6  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

extent  superseded  in  America,  Germany,  and  England, 
but  more  particularly  in  the  last-mentioned  country  by 
a  remarkable  earnestness,  a  general  deep-lying  religious- 
ness— using  the  word  in  its  broadest  sense,  for  the 
disposition  is  often  not  less  marked  amongst  those 
openly  rejecting  the  dogmas  of  religion  —  which  is 
perhaps  without  a  parallel  in  any  previous  age. 

It  would  be  a  great  mistake  to  view  now  as  repre- 
sentative of  the  time  the  aggressive  and  merely  de- 
structive form  of  unbelief  which  finds  expression  in 
England  in  opinions  like  those  of  the  late  Mr.  Charles 
Bradlaugh,  and  in  America  in  the  writings  and  addresses 
of  Colonel  Ingersoll.  Even  with  regard  to  the  views  of 
the  new  party  of  Agnostics,  representing  what  may  be 
called  unbelief  in  a  passive  state,  a  current  of  change  »ay 
be  discerned  in  progress.  The  militant  onslaughts 
of  so  cultured  a  representative  as  Professor  Huxley,  the 
founder  of  the  party,  do  not  find  the  response  in  men's 
minds  they  would  have  found  at  a  previous  time. 
They  are,  almost  unconsciously,  recognised  as  belonging 
to  a  phase  of  thought  beyond  which  the  present  genera- 
tion feels  itself,  in  some  way,  to  have  moved.  The 
general  mind,  so  often  more  scientific  than  our  current 
science,  seems  to  feel  that  there  is  something  wrong  in 
the  attitude  of  science  towards  this  subject  of  religion, 
that  the  most  persistent  and  universal  class  of  pheno- 
mena connected  with  human  society  cannot  be  thus 
lightly  disposed  of,  and  that  our  religious  systems  must 
have  some  unexplained  function  to  perform  in  the 
evolution  which  society  is  undergoing,  and  on  a  scale  to 
correspond  with  the  magnitude  of  the  phenomena. 

This  ill -defined  general  feeling  has  found  more 
active  expression  in  individuals.  The  movement  of  a 
certain  class  of  minds  towards  the  Church  of  Komp,  the 


THE  OUTLOOK  17 


most  conservative  and  uncompromising  of  all  the 
Churches,  which  began  in  England  in  the  middle  of  the 
century,  and  which  has  continued  in  some  degree  down 
to  the  present  time,  is  not  to  be  considered  merely  as 
a  religious  incident ;  it  is  of  deep  sociological  import. 
Even  the  tendency,  visible  at  the  present  time  amongst 
another  class  of  minds,  to  seek  cover  under  the  vague 
shadows  of  the  super-rational  in  Theosophy  and  kindred 
forms  of  belief,  has  a  certain  significance  which  will  not 
escape  the  attention  of  the  student  of  social  phenomena. 
It  is  but  the  outward  expression  in  another  form  of  the 
same  movement  affecting  a  different  type  of  mind.  It 
was,  probably,  an  overstatement  on  the  part  of  one  of  the 
leaders  of  the  Comtists  in  England  to  say  recently  that 
"the  net  result  of  the  whole  negative  attack  on  the 
Gospel  has  perhaps  been  to  deepen  the  moral  hold  of 
Christianity  on  society."1  The  opinion,  nevertheless, 
represents  the  imperfect  expression  of  a  truth  towards 
which  the  present  generation  is  slowly  feeling  its  way. 

We  have,  undoubtedly,  during  the  century,  made 
progress  in  these  matters.  The  direction  may  appear 
as  yet  uncertain,  but  all  the  indications  denote 
a  definite  and  unmistakable  advance  of  some  kind. 
The  condition  which  the  social  mind  has  reached  may  be 
tentatively  described  as  one  of  realisation,  more  or  less 
unconscious,(that  religion  has  a  definite  function  to  per- 
form in  society,  and  that  it  is  a  factor  of  some  kind  in 
the  social  evolution  which  is  in  progress.  )  But  as  to 
what  that  function  is,  where  it  begins,  where  it  ends, 
and  what  place  religious  beliefs  are  destined  to  fill  in  the 
future,  science  has  given  us  no  indication. 

But  it  is  now  when  we  turn  to  the  domain  which 

1  "  The  Future  of  Agnosticism,"  by  Mr.  Frederic  Harrison,  Fortnightly 
Review,  January  1889. 

0 


i8  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

science  has  made  her  own  that  the  outlines  and  propor- 
tions of  the  coming  change  begin  to  be  distinguished. 
The  time  is  certainly  not  far  distant  when  she  must 
look  back  with  surprise,  if  not,  indeed,  with  some  degree 
of  shamefacedness,  to  the  attitude  in  which  she  has  for 
long  addressed  herself  to  one  of  the  highest  problems  in 
the  history  of  life.  The  definition  of  the  laws  which 
have  shaped,  and  are  still  shaping,  the  course  of  progress 
in  human  society  is  the  work  of  science,  no  less  than  it 
has  been  her  work  to  discover  the  laws  which  have  con- 
trolled the  course  of  evolution  throughout  life  in  all  the 
lower  stages.  But  the  spirit  in  which  she  has  addressed 
herself  to  the  one  task  is  widely  different  from  that  in 
which  she  has  undertaken  the  other.  To  her  inyestiga- 
tions  in  biology,  science  has  brought  a  single-minded 
devotion  to  the  truth,  a  clear  judgment,  and  a  mind 
absolutely  unfettered  by  prejudice  or  bias  :  the  splendid 
achievements  of  the  century  in  this  department  of 
knowledge  are  the  result.  But  when,  in  the  ascending 
scale  of  life,  she  has  reached  man,  the  spirit  in  which  her 
investigations  have  been  continued  is  entirely  different. 
She  finds  him  emerging  from  the  dim  obscurity  of  a 
brute-like  existence  possessing  two  endowments  which 
mark  him  out  for  a  great  future,  namely  his  reason  and  his 
social  capacities.  Like  all  that  have  come  before  him  he 
is  engaged  in  a  fierce  and  endless  struggle  for  the  means 
of  existence  ;  and  he  now  takes  part  in  this  struggle  not 
only  against  his  fellows  but  in  company  with  them 
against  other  social  groups.  He  grows  ever  more  and 
more  social,  and  forms  himself  into  clans  and  organised 
tribal  groups.  From  the  beginning  science  finds  him 
under  the  sway  of  forces  new  to  her,  and  with  one  of  the 
strongest  of  these  forces  she  herself  at  a  very  early  stage 
comes  into  conflict.  He  holds  beliefs  which  she  asserts 


THE  OUTLOOK  19 


have  no  foundation  in  reason ;  and  his  actions  are  con- 
trolled by  strange  sanctions  which  she  does  not  acknow- 
ledge. The  incidents  and  events  connected  with  these 
beliefs  occupy,  however,  a  great  part  of  his  life,  and 
begin  to  influence  his  history  in  a  marked  manner.  He 
develops  into  nations  and  attains  to  a  certain  degree  of 
civilisation ;  but  these  beliefs  and  religions  appear  to 
grow  with  his  growth  and  to  develop  with  his  develop- 
ment. A  great  part  of  his  history  continues  to  be  filled 
with  the  controversies,  conflicts,  social  movements,  and 
wars  connected  with  them.  Great  social  systems  arise 
in  which  he  reaches  a  high  degree  of  civilisation,  which 
come  into  conflict  and  competition  with  each  other,  and 
which  develop  and  decline  like  organic  growths.  But 
with  the  life  and  development  of  these  his  religions  are 
evidently  still  intimately  connected ;  individual  character 
is  deeply  affected ;  and  the  course  of  history  and  the 
whole  character  of  social  development  continue  to  be 
profoundly  influenced  by  these  religious  systems. 

We  live  at  a  time  when  science  counts  nothing 
insignificant.  She  has  recognised  that  every  organ 
and  every  rudimentary  organ  has  its  utilitarian  history. 
Every  phase  and  attribute  of  life  has  its  meaning  in  her 
eyes ;  nothing  has  come  into  existence  by  chance.  "What 
then  are  these  religious  systems  which  fill  such  a 
commanding  place  in  man's  life  and  history  ?  What  is 
their  meaning  and  function  in  social  development  ?  To 
ask  these  questions  is  to  find  that  a  strange  silence  has 
fallen  upon  science.  She  has  no  answer.  Her  attitude 
towards  them  has  been  curious  in  the  extreme,  and 
widely  different  from  that  in  which  she  has  regarded  any 
other  of  the  phenomena  of  life.  From  an  early  stage  in 
her  career  we  find  that  she  has  been  engaged  in  a 
personal  quarrel  with  these  religions,  which  has  de- 


20  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

veloped  into  a  bitter  feud.  In  any  other  circumstances 
it  would  probably  have  occurred  to  science  at  the 
outset  to  ask  whether  this  struggle  had  not  itself  some 
meaning,  and  whether  it  was  not  connected  with  some 
deep-seated  law  of  social  development  which  it  would  be 
her  duty  to  investigate.  But  this  aspect  of  the  position 
seems,  hitherto,  to  have  received  scarcely  any  attention. 
These  religions  of  man  form  one  of  the  most  striking  and 
persistent  of  the  phenomena  of  life  when  encountered 
under  its  highest  forms,  namely,  in  human  society. 
Yet,  strange  to  say,  science  seems  to  have  taken  up,  and 
to  have  maintained,  down  to  the  present  time,  the  extra- 
ordinary position  that  her  only  concern  with  them  is  to 
declare  (often,  it  must  be  confessed,  with  the  heat  and 
bitterness  of  a  partisan)  that  they  are  without  any 
foundation  in  reason. 

Now,  to  any  one  who  has  caught  the  spirit  of 
Darwinian  science,  it  is  evident  that  this  is  not  the  ques- 
tion at  issue  at  all.  The  question  of  real  importance  is 
not  whether  any  section  of  persons,  however  learned,  is 
of  opinion  that  these  beliefs  are  without  any  foundation 

(in  reason,  but  whether  religious  systems  have  a  function  \ 
to  perform  in  the  evolution  of  society.     If  they  have,  ' 
and  one  which  at  all  corresponds  in  magnitude  to  the 
scale  on  which  we  find  the  phenomena  existing,  then 
nothing  can  be  more  certain  than  that  evolution  will 
follow  its  course  independent  of  our  opinions,  and  that 
these  systems  will  continue  to  the  end,  and  must  be 
expected  to  play  as  great  a  part  in  the  future  as  they 
have  done  in  the  past. 

In  such  circumstances  it  is  evident  that  the  assault 
which  science  has  conducted  against  religion  in  the  past 
would  have  to  be  considered  simply  an  attack  on  an 
empty  fort.  Not  only  has  the  real  position  not  been 


THE  OUTLOOK  21 


assailed,  but  when  we  are  confronted  with  it,  it  would 
seem  to  be  impregnable.  Many  like  the  late  Mr.  Cotter 
Morison  may  have  been  so  far  impressed  with  the 
course  of  events  in  the  past  as  to  think  that  religious 
beliefs  are  so  far  shaken  that  their  future  survival  "  is 
rather  an  object  of  pious  hope  than  of  reasoned  judg- 
ment ;" 1  or  to  assume,  like  M.  Renan,  that  they  "  will 
die  slowly  out,  undermined  by  primary  instruction,  and 
by  the  predominance  of  scientific  over  literary  educa- 
tion."2 But  no  greater  mistake  can  be  made  than  to 
imagine  that  there  is  anything  in  evolutionary  science 
at  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century  to  justify  such 
conclusions.  On  the  contrary,  if  these  beliefs  are  a 
factor  in  the  development  which  society  is  undergoing, 
then  the  most  notable  result  of  the  scientific  revolution 
begun  by  Darwin  must  be  to  establish  them  on  a 
foundation  as  broad,  deep,  and  lasting  as  any  that 
the  theologians  have  dreamt  o£  According  to  the 
laws  which  science  has  herself  enunciated  these  beliefs 
must  then  be  expected  to  remain  to  the  end  a  charac- 
teristic feature  of  our  social  evolution. 

The  more  we  regard  the  religious  phenomena  of 
mankind  as  a  whole,  the  more  the  conviction  grows 
upon  us  that  here,  as  in  other  departments  of  social 
affairs,  science  has  yet  obtained  no  real  grasp  of  the 
laws  underlying  the  development  which  is  proceeding 
in  society.  These  religious  phenomena  are  certainly 
among  the  most  persistent  and  characteristic  features  of 
the  development  which  we  find  man  undergoing  in 
society.  No  one  who  approaches  the  subject  with  an 
unbiassed  mind  in  the  spirit  of  modern  evolutionary 
science  can,  for  a  moment,  doubt  that  the  beliefs  repre- 

1  The  Service  of  Man,  p.  6. 
*  Studies  in  Religious  History,  p.  14. 


22  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

sented  must  have  some  immense  utilitarian  function  to 
perform  in  the  evolution  which  is  proceeding.  Yet 
contemporary  literature  may  be  searched  almost  in  vain 
for  evidence  of  any  true  realisation  of  this  fact.  Even 
the  attempt  made  by  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  in  his 
Sociology  to  deal  with  the  phenomena  of  religions  can 
scarcely  be  said  to  be  conceived  in  the  spirit  of  evolu- 
tionary science  as  now  understood.  It  is  hard  to  follow 
the  author  in  his  theories  of  the  development  of  re- 
ligious beliefs  from  ghosts  and  ancestor  worship,  with- 
out a  continual  feeling  of  disappointment,  and  even 
impatience  at  the  triviality  and  comparative  insignifi- 
cance of  the  explanations  offered  to  account  for  the 
development  of  such  an  imposing  class  of  social  pheno- 
mena. His  disciples  have  only  followed  in  the  same 
path.  We  find  Mr.  Grant  Allen,  one  of  the  most 
devoted  of  them,  recently,  in  explaining  the  principles 
of  his  master,  going  so  far  as  to  speak  of  a  character- 
istic feature  of  the  higher  forms  of  religion  as  so  much 
"  grotesque  fungoid  growth,"  which  has  clustered  round 
the  primeval  thread  of  Ancestor  Worship.1  Neither  Mr. 
Grant  Allen  nor  any  other  evolutionist  would  dream  of 
describing  the  mammalian  brain  as  a  grotesque  fungoid 
growth  which  had  clustered  round  the  primitive  dorsal 
nerve ;  yet  such  language  would  not  be  more  short- 
sighted than  that  which  is  here  used  in  discussing  a 
feature  of  the  most  distinctive  class  of  phenomena  which 
the  evolution  of  society  presents. 

In  whatever  direction  we  look,  the  attitude  presented 
by  science  towards  the  social  phenomena  of  the  day  can 
hardly  be  regarded  as  satisfactory.  She  stands  con- 
fronting the  problems  of  our  time  without  any  clear 

1  "The  Gospel  according  to   Herbert  Spencer,"  Pall  Mall   Gazette, 
28th  April  1890. 


THE  OUTLOOK  23 


faith  of  her  own.  That  illustrious  school  of  political 
philosophy  which  arose  in  England  with  Hobbes  and 
Locke,  and  which  earlier  in  this  century  had  attained  to 
such  wide  influence  in  the  writings  of  Hume,  Adam 
Smith,  Bentham,  Bicardo,  and  Mill,  has  towards  our 
own  time  become  unduly  narrowed  and  egotistical 
largely  through  its  own  success.  Although  it  has  in  the 
past  profoundly  influenced  the  higher  thought  of  Europe 
and  America  in  nearly  all  its  branches,  and  has  been 
in  its  turn  enriched  thereby,  the  departments  into 
which  it  has  become  subdivided  have  shown  a  tendency 
to  remain  reserved  and  exclusive,  and  to  a  large  extent 
unaffected  by  the  progressive  tendencies  and  wider 
knowledge  of  our  time. 

In  this  connection  one  of  the  remarkable  signs  of  the 
time  in  England  of  late  has  been  the  gradually  spreading 
revolt  against  many  of  the  conclusions  of  the  school  of 
political  economy  represented  by  Adam  Smith,  Kieardo, 
and  Mill,  which  has  been  in  the  ascendant  throughout  the 
greater  part  of  the  century.  The  earlier  and  vigorous, 
though  unofficial  protests  of  Mr.  Ruskin  and  others 
against  the  narrow  reasoning  which  regarded  man  in 
general  simply  as  a  type  of  the  "  city  man,"  or,  in  Mr. 
Ruskin's  more  forcible  phraseology,  as  a  mere  covetous 
machine,1  have  long  since  in  Germany  and  America 
found  a  voice  amongst  the  official  exponents  of  the 
science.  Even  in  England,  writers  like  Jevons  and 
Cliffe  Leslie  have  not  hesitated  to  condemn  many  of 
its  dogmatic  tendencies,  and  conclusions  arrived  at 
from  narrow  and  insufficient  premises,  in  terms  almost 
as  emphatic.  ,  "  Adhering  to  lines  of  thought  that  had 
been  started  chiefly  by  mediaeval  traders,  and  continued 
by  French  and  English  philosophers  in  the  latter  half  of 

1  Vide  his  Unto  this  Last. 


24  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

the  eighteenth  century,  Ricardo  and  his  followers,"  says 
Professor  Marshall,  "  developed  a  theory  of  the  action 
of  free  enterprise  (or  as  they  said  free  competition), 
which  contained  many  truths  that  will  be  of  high 
importance  so  long  as  the  world  exists.  Their  work 
was  wonderfully  complete  within  the  area  which  it 
covered  :  but  that  area  was  very  narrow.  Much  of  the 
best  of  it  consists  of  problems  relating  to  rent  and  the 
value  of  corn ;  problems  on  the  solution  of  which  the 
fate  of  England  just  then  seemed  to  depend,  but  which 
in  the  particular  form  in  which  they  were  worked  up  by 
Ricardo  have  very  little  direct  bearing  on  the  present 
state  of  things."1 

The  school  found  its  highest  expression  in  John 
Stuart  Mill's  Principles  of  Political  Economy,  a  book 
which  has  deeply  influenced  recent  thought  in  England. 
Mill,  it  has  been  truly  pointed  out,2  has  gone  far  towards 
forming  the  thoughts  of  nearly  all  the  older  political 
economists,  and  in  determining  their  attitude  to  social 
questions.  It  is  true  that  we  have  evidences  of  a  wide- 
reaching  change  which  is  now  in  progress  in  England ; 
and  Professor  Marshall's  book,  Principles  of  Economics, 
published  in  1890,  marks  a  worthy  attempt  to  place  the 
science  on  a  firmer  foundation  by  bringing  it  into  more 
vitalising  contact  with  history,  politics,  ethics,  and 
even  religion.  The  departure,  it  must  be  confessed,  is, 
nevertheless,  but  the  effort  of  a  department  of  science 
to  recover  ground  which  it  has  lost  largely  through  its 
own  faults.  It  marks  a  somewhat  belated  attempt 
to  explain  social  phenomena  which  political  economists 
at  first  ignored,  and  evidently  did  not  understand, 
rather  than  the  development  of  a  science  with  a  firm 

1  Principles  of  Economics,  by  Professor  Alfred  Marshall,  voL  i.  pp.  92,93. 
•  Ibid.,  vide  vol.  i.  p.  65. 


THE  OUTLOOK  25 


grasp  of  the  laws  and  causes  which  are  producing  these 
phenomena.  Judged  by  a  simple  scientific  principle, 
recently  laid  down  by  Mr.  Leslie  Stephen,  our  political 
economy  must  certainly  be  found  wanting.  "  A  genuine 
scientific  theory  implies  a  true  estimate  of  the  great 
forces  which  mould  institutions,  and,  therefore,  a  true 
cippreciation  of  the  limits  within  which  they  might  be 
modified  by  any  proposed  change."  But  it  can  hardly 
be  claimed  for  economics  in  general  that  it  has  reached 
this  stage.  Our  social  phenomena  seem  to  be  continu- 
ally moving  beyond  its  theories  into  unknown  territory, 
and  we  see  the  economists  following  after  as  best 
they  can,  and,  with  some  loss  of  respect  from  the  on- 
lookers, slowly  and  painfully  adjusting  the  old  argu- 
ments and  conclusions  to  the  new  phenomena.1 

It  is  almost  the  same  with  the  other  sciences  which 
deal  with  our  social  affairs.  The  comparative  barrenness 
which  appears  to  distinguish  them,  when  we  regard  the 

1  The  development  which  has  been  taking  place  in  the  views  of 
political  economists  during  the  century,  mainly  through  pressure  from 
without,  is  very  fairly  described  by  Professor  Marshall.  At  the  begin- 
ning of  the  nineteenth  century  the  economists  paid  little  attention  to  the 
deeper  problems  of  human  nature  which  will  always  underlie  the  science. 
"  Flushed  with  their  victories  over  a  set  of  much  more  solid  thinkers  they 
did  not  trouble  themselves  to  examine  any  of  the  doctrines  of  the  socialists, 
and  least  of  all  their  speculations  as  to  human  nature.  But  the  socialists 
were  men  who  had  felt  intensely,  and  who  knew  something  about  the 
hidden  springs  of  human  action  of  which  the  economists  took  no  account. 
Buried  among  their  wild  rhapsodies  there  were  shrewd  observations  and 
pregnant  suggestions  from  which  philosophers  and  economists  had  much 
to  learn.  And  gradually  their  influence  began  to  tell.  Comte's  debts  to 
them  were  very  great ;  and  the  crisis  of  John  Stuart  Mill's  life,  as  he  tells 
us  in  his  autobiography,  came  to  him  from  reading  them." 

"  When  we  come  later  on  to  compare  the  modern  view  of  the  vital 
problem  of  distribution  with  that  which  prevailed  at  the  beginning  of  the 
century,  we  shall  find  that  over  and  above  all  changes  in  detail,  and  all 
improvements  in  scientific  accuracy  of  reasoning,  there  is  a  fundamental 
change  in  treatment ;  for  while  the  earlier  economists  argued  as  though 
man's  character  and  efficiency  were  to  be  regarded  as  a  fixed  quantity, 
modern  economists  keep  carefully  in  mind  the  fact  that  it  is  a  product  of 


26  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

work  done  during  the  century  in  the  lower  branches  of 
science,  is  striking,  and  it  is  doubtless  largely  due  to  the 
point  of  view  from  which  they  have  been  approached. 
In  nothing  does  Professor  Marshall  show  truer  philo- 
sophical insight  than  in  remarking  how  deeply  economics 
now  tends  to  be  affected  by  the  developments  which  the 
biological  sciences  have  undergone  during  the  century, 
and  in  noting  its  relationship  to  these  sciences  rather 
than  to  the  mathematico-physical  group  upon  which  it 
leant  at  the  beginning  of  the  century.1  By  those 
sciences  which  deal  with  human  society  it  seems  to 
have  been  for  long  ignored  or  forgotten  that  in  that 
society  we  are  merely  regarding  the  highest  phenomena 
in  the  history  of  life,  and  that  consequently  all  depart- 
ments of  knowledge  which  deal  with  social  phenomena 
have  their  true  foundation  in  the  biological  sciences. 

Even  in  economics,  despite  recent  advances,  it 
does  not  yet  seem  to  be  recognised  that  a  knowledge 
of  the  fundamental  principles  of  biology,  and  of  the 
laws  which  have  controlled  the  development  of  life 
up  to  human  society,  is  any  necessary  part  of  the 
outfit  with  which  to  approach  the  study  of  this 
science,  In  history  the  divorce  is  even  more  com- 
plete. We  have  the  historian  dealing  with  the  record 
of  life  in  its  highest  forms,  and  recognised  as  the 
interpreter  of  the  rich  and  varied  record  of  man's  social 
phenomena  in  the  past;  yet,  strange  to  say,  feeling 
it  scarcely  necessary  to  take  any  interest  in  those 
sciences  which  in  the  truest  sense  lead  up  to  his 

the  circumstances  under  which  he  has  lived.  This  change  in  the  point 
of  view  of  economics  is  partly  due  to  the  fact  that  the  changes  in  human 
nature  during  the  last  fifty  years  have  been  so  rapid  as  to  force  themselves 
on  the  attention  ;  partly  it  has  been  due  to  the  influence  of  individual 
writers,  socialists,  and  others  ;  and  it  has  been  produced  by  a  parallel 
change  in  other  sciences."  VoL  i.  pp.  63-4. 
1  Privtipks  of  Economics,  vol.  i.  pp.  64,  65. 


THE  OUTLOOK  27 


subject.  It  is  hardly  to  be  wondered  at  if  he  has  so  far 
scarcely  succeeded  in  raising  history,  even  in  name,  to  the 
dignity  of  a  science.  Despite  the  advances  which  have 
recently  been  made  in  Germany  and  England,  historical 
science  is  still  a  department  of  knowledge  almost  with- 
out generalisations  of  the  nature  of  laws.  The  historian 
takes  us  through  events  of  the  past,  through  the  rise  and 
decline  of  great  civilisations  where  we  seem  to  recognise 
many  of  the  well-known  phenomena  of  life,  through  the 
development  of  social  systems  which  are  even  spoken  of 
as  organic  growths,  through  a  social  development  which 
is  evidently  progressing  in  some  definite  direction,  and 
sets  us  down  at  last  with  our  faces  to  the  future  with 
scarcely  a  hint  as  to  any  law  underlying  it  all,  or 
indication  as  to  where  our  own  civilisation  is  tending. 
Those  who  remember  the  impression  not  so  long  ago 
created  in  England  by  the  modest  attempt  of  Professor 
Freeman  to  bring  us  merely  to  see  that  history  was 
past  politics,  and  politics  but  present  history,  will  feel 
how  far  off  indeed  historical  science  still  is  from  the 
goal  at  which  it  aims. 

Yet  the  social  phenomena  which  are  treated  of 
under  the  heads  of  politics,  history,  ethics,  economics, 
and  religion  must  all  be  regarded  as  but  the  intimately 
related  phenomena  of  the  science  of  life  under  its  most 
complex  aspect.  The  biologist  whose  crowning  work 
in  the  century  has  been  the  establishment  of  order 
and  law  in  the  lower  branches  of  his  subject  has  carried 
us  up  to  human  society  and  there  left  us  without  a 
guide.  It  is  true  that  at  an  earlier  stage  he  has  been 
warned  off  the  ground  at  the  other  side  and  treated 
with  bitterness  and  intolerance.  But  there  is  no  reason 
why  the  remembrance  of  such  treatment  should  cause 
him  still  to  so  far  forget  himself  and  his  duty  to  science, 


28  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP.  I 

that  we  should  find  him  in  a  state  of  mind  capable 
of  speaking  of  any  class  of  social  phenomena  as 
grotesque  fungoid  growths.  In  the  meantime,  each 
of  the  departments  of  knowledge  which  has  dealt  with 
man  in  society  has  regarded  him  almost  exclusively 
from  its  own  standpoint.  To  the  politician  he  has  been 
the  mere  opportunist ;  to  the  historian  he  has  been  the 
unit  which  is  the  sport  of  blind  forces  apparently  subject 
to  no  law ;  to  the  exponent  of  religion  he  has  been  the 
creature  of  another  world  ;  to  the  political  economist  he 
has  been  little  more  than  the  covetous  machine.  The 
time  has  come,  it  would  appear,  for  a  better  understand- 
ing and  for  a  more  radical  method ;  for  the  social 
sciences  to  strengthen  themselves  by  sending  their  roots 
deep  into  the  soil  underneath  from  which  they  spring ; 
and  for  the  biologist  to  advance  over  the  frontier  and 
carry  the  methods  of  his  science  boldly  into  human 
society  where  he  has  but  to  deal  with  the  phenomena 
of  life  where  he  encounters  life  at  last  under  its  highest 
and  most  complex  aspect. 

: 


CHAPTER  II 

CONDITIONS   OF   HUMAN   PROGRESS 

LET  us,  as  far  as  possible,  unbiassed  by  pre- con- 
ceived ideas,  endeavour,  before  we  proceed  further,  to 
obtain  some  clear  conception  of  what  human  society 
really  is,  and  of  the  nature  of  the  conditions  which  have 
been  attendant  on  the  progress  we  have  made  so  far. 

There  is  no  phenomenon  so  stupendous,  so  bewilder- 
ing, and  withal  so  interesting  to  man  as  that  of  his 
own  evolution  in  society.  The  period  it  has  occupied 
in  his  history  is  short  compared  with  the  whole  span  of 
that  history ;  yet  the  results  obtained  are  striking 
beyond  comparison.  Looking  back  through  the  glasses 
of  modern  science  we  behold  him  at  first  outwardly  a 
brute,  feebly  holding  his  own  against  many  fierce 
competitors.  He  has  no  wants  above  those  of  the 
beast ;  he  lives  in  holes  and  dens  in  the  rocks ;  he  is  a 
brute,  even  more  feeble  in  body  than  many  of  the 
animals  with  which  he  struggles  for  a  brute's  portion. 
Tens  of  thousands  of  years  pass  over  him,  and  his 
progress  is  slow  and  painful  to  a  degree.  The  dim 
light  which  inwardly  illumines  him  has  grown  brighter ; 
the  rude  weapons  which  aid  his  natural  helplessness  are 
better  shaped ;  the  cunning  with  which  he  circumvents 
his  prey,  and  which  helps  him  against  his  enemies,  is  of 


30  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

a  higher  order.  But  he  continues  to  leave  little  im- 
press on  nature  or  his  surroundings;  he  is  still  in 
wants  and  instincts  merely  as  his  fellow  denizens  of  the 
wilderness. 

We  look  again,  and  a  marvellous  transformation  has 
taken  place — a  transformation  which  is  without  any 
parallel  in  the  previous  history  of  life.  This  brute -like 
creature,  which  for  long  ages  lurked  in  the  woods  and 
amongst  the  rocks,  scarcely  to  all  appearances  of  so  much 
account  as  the  higher  carnivora  with  which  he  competed 
for  a  scanty  subsistence,  has  obtained  mastery  over  the 
whole  earth.  He  has  organised  himself  into  great  societies. 
The  brutes  are  no  longer  his  companions  and  com- 
petitors. He  has  changed  the  face  of  continents.  The 
earth  produces  at  his  will ;  all  its  resources  are  his.  The 
secrets  of  the  universe  have  been  plumbed,  and  with  the 
knowledge  obtained  he  has  turned  the  world  into  a  vast 
workshop  where  all  the  powers  of  nature  work  sub- 
missively in  bondage  to  supply  his  wants.  His  power 
at  length  appears  illimitable ;  for  the  source  of  it  is  the 
boundless  wealth  of  knowledge  which  is  stored  up  in 
the  great  civilisations  he  has  developed  and  which 
ever  continues  to  increase,  every  addition  thereto  but 
offering  new  opportunities  for  further  expansion. 

But  when  we  come  to  examine  the  causes  of  this 
remarkable  development  we  find  the  greatest -obscurity 
prevailing.  Man  himself  has  hitherto  viewed  his  pro- 
gress with  a  species  of  awe ;  so  much  so  that  he  often 
seems  to  hesitate  to  regard  it  as  a  natural  phenomenon, 
and  therefore  under  the  control  of  natural  laws.  To  all 
of  us  it  is  from  its  very  nature  bewildering ;  to  many 
it  is  in  addition  mysterious,  marvellous,  supernatural. 

In  proceeding  to  discuss  in  what  manner  natural 
laws  have  operated  in  producing  the  advance  man  has 


II  CONDITIONS  OF  HUMAN  PROGRESS  31 

made  in  society  we  must  endeavour  to  approach  the 
subject  without  bias  or  prejudice ;  if  possible  in  the  same 
spirit  in  which  the  historian  feels  it  to  be  his  duty  to 
deal  with  human  history  so  far  as  it  extends  before 
his  more  limited  view,  or  in  which  the  biologist  has 
dealt  with  the  phenomena  of  the  development  of  life 
elsewhere.  Man,  since  we  first  en  ounter  him,  has 
made  ceaseless  progress  upwards,  and  this  progress 
continues  before  our  eyes.  But  it  has  never  been,  nor 
is  it  now,  an  equal  advance  of  the  whole  of  the  race. 
Looking  back  we  see  that  the  road  by  which  he  has 
come  is  strewn  with  the  wrecks  of  nations,  races,  and 
civilisations,  that  have  fallen  by  the  way,  pushed 
aside  by  the  operation  of  laws  which  it  takes  no  eye  of 
faith  to  distinguish  at  work  amongst  us  at  the  present 
time  as  surely  and  as  effectively  as  at  any  past  period. 
Social  systems  and  civilisations  resemble  individuals 
in  one  respect;  they  are  organic  growths,  apparently 
possessing  definite  laws  of  health  and  development. 
Such  laws  science  has  already  defi  ed  for  the  individual, 
it  should  also  be  her  duty  to  endeavour  to  define  them 
for  society. 

It  is  desirable  at  the  outset  to  be  able  to  realise  the 
importance  of  a  preliminary  study  of  the  laws  which 
have  operated  in  shaping  the  development  of  life  else- 
where. These  laws,  the  observer  soon  convinces  him- 
self, have  not  been  suspended  in  human  society. 
On  the  contrary,  he  sees  that  they  must  have  their  most 
important  seat  of  action  there.  To  recognise  this  truth 
one  has  only  to  remember  that  the  discovery  which  in 
our  time  has  raised  biology  from  a  mere  record  of 
isolated  facts  to  a  majestic  story  of  orderly  progress 
was  not  suggested  by  the  study  of  life  amongst  the 
lower  animals.  The  law,  by  the  enunciation  of  which 


32  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

Darwin  most  advanced  the  science  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  took  shape  in  the  mind  of  the  great  biologist 
after  observation  of  human  society,  and  that  society, 
in  particular,  which  we  see  around  us  at  the  present 
day.1  All  the  work,  so  far,  of  evolutionary  science, 
should  be  preliminary  to  a  higher  end ;  enriched  with 
the  harvest  of  information  gathered  in  other  fields,  and 
equipped  with  a  knowledge  of  principles,  it  should  now 
return  to  human  society  and  endeavour  to  trace  the 
workings  of  its  own  laws  under  the  complex  conditions 
there  prevailing. 

Putting  aside  then  at  first  all  question  of  the  future, 
let  us  see  if  we  can  say,  from  the  point  of  view  of 
evolutionary  science,  what  have  been  the  conditions  of 
human  progress  in  the  past. 

Looking  round  to-day  at  the  lowest  existing  types 
of  humanity  and  comparing  them  with  the  highest, 
one  feels  immediately  constrained  to  ask — Do  we  ever 
fully  realise  how  this  advance  of  which  we  are  so  proud, 
and  which  is  represented  by  the  intellectual  and  social 
distance  between  these  two  extremes,  has  been  brought 
about  ?  We  talk  vaguely  about  it,  and  take  for 
granted  many  things  in  connection  with  it;  but  the 
number  of  those  who  have  grasped  certain  elementary 
biological  laws  of  which  it  is  the  result,  and  which  have 
controlled  and  directed  it  as  rigidly  as  the  law  of  gravity 

1  Speaking  of  the  workings  of  his  mind  before  the  Origin  of  Species 
was  begun,  Darwin  says,  "  In  October  1838,  that  is,  fifteen  months  after  I 
had  begun  my  systematic  inquiry,  I  happened  to  read  for  amusement 
Mai  thus  on  population  ;  and  being  well  prepared  to  appreciate  the  struggle 
for  existence  which  everywhere  goes  on,  from  long  continued  observation 
of  the  habits  of  animals  and  plants,  it  at  once  struck  me  that,  under  these 
circumstances,  favourable  variations  would  tend  to  be  preserved  and 
unfavourable  ones  to  be  destroyed.  The  result  of  this  would  be  the 
foundation  of  a  new  species.  Here,  then,  I  had  at  last  got  a  theory  by 
which  to  work." — The  Life  and  Lettert  of  Darwin,  by  his  son  F.  Darwin  . 
Autobiographical  chapter,  vol.  i. 


ii  CONDITIONS  OF  HUMAN  PROGRESS  33 

controls  and  directs  a  body  falling  to  the  earth,  is 
surprisingly  small. 

In  attempting  to  explain  what  these  biological  laws 
are  it  will  be  necessary,  in  order  to  clear  the  ground, 
to  leave  for  later  consideration  the  more  special  and 
peculiar  features  which  man's  evolution  in  society 
presents,  and  to  confine  ourselves  in  this  chapter  to  the 
task  of  bringing  into  due  prominence  certain  funda- 
mental principles  of  development  which  are  profoundly 
affecting  him,  in  common  with  all  other  forms  of  life ; 
but  which  are,  as  a  general  rule,  ignored  or  overlooked 
in  the  greater  part  of  the  literature  on  social  questions 
and  social  progress  which  is  the  product  of  our  time. 
It  is  of  no  little  importance  to  begin  at  the  beginning 
in  these  matters.  We  find  man  in  everyday  life 
continually  subject  to  laws  and  conditions  which  have 
been  imposed  upon  him  in  common  with  all  the  rest 
of  creation,  and  we  accept  these  conditions  and  make 
it  our  business  to  learn  all  we  can  of  them.  If  in 
following  his  evolution  in  society,  we  find  him  in  like 
manner  subject  to  laws  which  have  governed  the  develop- 
ment of  the  lower  forms  of  life,  and  which  are  merely 
operating  in  society  under  more  complex  conditions,  it  is 
also  our  duty,  if  we  would  comprehend  our  own  history,  to 
take  these  laws  as  we  find  them,  and  to  endeavour,  at  the 
very  earliest  stage,  to  understand  them  as  far  as  possible. 

Now,  at  the  outset,  we  find  man  to  be  in  one  respect 
exactly  like  all  the  creatures  which  have  come  before 
him.  He  reproduces  his  kind  from  generation  to  genera- 
tion. In  doing  so  he  is  subject  to  a  law  which  must 
never  be  lost  sight  of.  Left  to  himself,  this  high-born 
creature,  whose  progress  we  seem  to  take  for  granted, 
has  not  the  slightest  innate  tendency  to  make  any 
onward  progress  whatever.  It  may  appear  strange,  but 

D 


34  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

it  is  strictly  true,  that  if  each  of  us  were  allowed  by  the 
conditions  of  life  to  follow  his  own  inclinations,  the 
average  of  one  generation  would  have  no  tendency 
whatever  to  rise  beyond  the  average  of  the  preceding 
one,  but  distinctly  the  reverse.  This  is  not  a  peculiarity 
of  man ;  it  has  been  a  law  of  life  from  the  beginning, 
and  it  continues  to  be  a  universal  law  which  we  have 
no  power  to  alter.  How  then  is  progress  possible? 
The  answer  to  this  question  is  the  starting-point  of  all 
the  science  of  human  society. 

Progress  everywhere  from  the  beginning  of  life  has 
been  effected  in  the  same  way,  and  it  is  possible  in  no 
other  way.  It  is  the  result  of  selection  and  rejection. 
In  the  human  species,  as  in  every  other  species  which 
has  ever  existed,  no  two  individuals  of  a  generation  are 
alike  in  all  respects ;  there  is  infinite  variation  within 
certain  narrow  limits.  Some  are  slightly  above  the 
average  in  a  particular  direction  as  others  are  below  it ; 
and  it  is  only  when  conditions  prevail  which  are  favour- 
able to  a  preponderating  reproduction  of  the  former 
that  advance  in  any  direction  becomes  possible.  To 
formulate  this  as  the  immutable  law  of  progress  since 
the  beginning  of  life  has  been  one  of  the  principal  results 
of  the  biological  science  of  the  century ;  and  recent 
work,  including  the  remarkable  contributions  of  Professor 
Weismann  in  Germany,  has  all  tended  to  establish  it 
on  foundations  which  are  not  now  likely  to  be  shaken. 
To  put  it  in  words  used  by  Professor  Flower  in  speak- 
ing of  human  society,  "Progress  has  been  due  to  the 
opportunity  of  those  individuals  who  are  a  little 
superior  in  some  respects  to  their  fellows,  of  asserting 
their  superiority  and  of  continuing  to  live  and  of 
promulgating  as  an  inheritance  that  superiority."1  The 

1  Reply  to  an  Address  by  the  Trades  Council,  Newcastle,  September  1889. 


n  CONDITIONS  OF  HUMAN  PROGRESS  35 

recognition  of  this  law  must  be  the  first  step  towards 
any  true  science  of  society ;  and  it  is  only  right  that  we 
should  find  Professor  Flower  insisting,  although  such 
a  spectacle  is  somewhat  unusual  at  present  amongst 
exponents  of  biological  science,  that  it  is  "  the  message 
which  pure  and  abstract  biological  research  has  sent  to 
help  us  on  with  some  of  the  commonest  problems  of 
human  life."1  Where  there  is  progress  there  must 
inevitably  be  selection,  and  selection  must  in  its  turn 
involve  competition  of  some  kind. 

But  let  us  deal  first  with  the  necessity  for  progress. 
From  time  to  time  we  find  the  question  discussed  by 
many  who  only  imperfectly  understand  the  conditions  to 
which  life  is  subject,  as  to  whether  progress  is  worth  the 
price  paid  for  it.  But  we  have  really  no  choice  in  the 
matter.  Progress  is  a  necessity  from  which  there  is 
simply  no  escape,  and  from  which  there  has  never  been 
any  escape  since  the  beginning  of  life.  Looking  back 
through  the  history  of  life  anterior  to  man,  we  find  it  to 
be  a  record  of  ceaseless  progress  on  the  one  hand,  and 
ceaseless  stress  and  competition  on  the  other.  This 
orderly  and  beautiful  world  which  we  see  around  us  is 
now,  and  always  has  been,  the  scene  of  incessant  rivalry 
between  all  the  forms  of  life  inhabiting  it — rivalry,  too, 
not  chiefly  conducted  between  different  species  but 
between  members  of  the  same  species.  The  plants  in 
the  green  sward  beneath  our  feet  are  engaged  in  silent 
rivalry  with  each  other,  a  rivalry  which  if  allowed  to 
proceed  without  outside  interference  would  know  no 
pause  until  the  weaker  were  exterminated.  Every  part, 
organ,  or  quality  of  these  plants  which  calls  forth 
admiration  for  its  beauty  or  perfection,  has  its  place  and 
meaning  in  this  struggle,  and  has  been  acquired  to 

1  Keply  to  an  Address  by  the  Trades  Council,  Newcastle,  September  1889 


36  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

ensure  success  therein.  The  trees  of  the  forest  which 
clothe  and  beautify  the  landscape  are  in  a  state  of  nature 
engaged  in  the  same  rivalry  with  each  other.  Left  to 
themselves  they  fight  out,  as  unmistakable  records  have 
shown,  a  stubborn  struggle  extending  over  centuries  in 
which  at  last  only  those  forms  most  suitable  to  the 
conditions  of  the  locality  retain  their  places.  But  so  far 
we  view  the  rivalry  under  simple  conditions;  it  is 
amongst  the  forms  of  animal  life  as  we  begin  to  watch 
the  gradual  progress  upwards  to  higher  types  that  it 
becomes  many-sided  and  complex. 

It  is  at  this  point  that  we  encounter  a  feature  of  the 
struggle  which  recent  developments  of  biological  science 
tend  to  bring  into  ever -in  creasing  prominence.  The 
first  necessity  for  every  successful  form  engaged  in  this 
struggle  is  the  capacity  for  reproduction  beyond  the 
limits  which  the  conditions  of  life  for  the  time  being 
comfortably  provide  for.  The  capacity  for  multiplying 
in  this  way  is  at  first  one  of  the  principal  resources 
in  the  development  upwards,  and  in  the  lower  forms 
of  life  it  is  still  almost  the  sole  equipment.  But  as 
progress  begins  to  be  made,  a  deeper  cause,  the  almost 
illimitable  significance  of  which  science  is  beginning 
to  appreciate,  requires  that  all  the  successful  forms 
must  multiply  beyond  the  limits  of  comfortable 
existence. 

Recent  biological  researches,  and  more  particularly 
the  investigations  and  conclusions  of  Professor  Weis- 
mann,  have  tended  to  greatly  develop  Darwin's  original 
hypothesis  as  to  the  conditions  under  which  progress 
has  been  made  in  the  various  forms  of  life.  It  is 
now  coming  to  be  recognised  as  a  necessarily  in- 
herent part  of  the  doctrine  of  evolution,  that  if  the 
continual  selection  which  is  always  going  on  amongst 


ii  CONDITIONS  OF  HUMAN  PROGRESS  yj 

the  higher  forms  of  life  were  to  be  suspended,  these 
forms  would  not  only  possess  no  tendency  to  make 
progress  forwards,  but  must  actually  go  backwards. 
That  is  to  say,  if  all  the  individuals  of  every  generation 
in  any  species  were  allowed  to  equally  propagate  their 
kind,  the  average  of  each  generation  would  continually 
tend  to  fall  below  the  average  of  the  generation  which 
preceded  it,  and  a  process  of  slow  but  steady  degenera- 
tion would  ensue.1  It  is,  therefore,  an  inevitable  law 
of  life  amongst  the  higher  forms,  that  competition 
and  selection  must  not  only  always  accompany  pro- 
gress, but  that  they  must  prevail  amongst  every 
form  of  life  which  is  not  actually  retrograding.  Every 
successful  form  must,  of  necessity,  multiply  beyond  the 
limits  which  the  average  conditions  of  life  comfortably 
provide  for.  Other  things  being  equal,  indeed,  the 
wider  the  limits  of  selection,  the  keener  the  rivalry, 

1  The  significance  of  this  recent  development  of  biological  science  is 
scarcely  as  yet  realised  outside  the  department  of  knowledge  which  it 
more  immediately  concerns.  But  that  the  higher  branches  of  thought 
must  in  time  be  profoundly  affected  by  it,  is  certain.  What  we  are  com- 
ing to  see  is,  that,  as  the  higher  forms  of  life  have  behind  them  an  immense 
line  of  ancestry  of  lower  development,  the  tendency  of  every  organ  to 
fail  to  reach  its  maximum  development  is  a  constant  quantity  which  out- 
weighs in  the  average,  where  it  is  allowed  to  act,  all  other  developmental 
tendencies  whatever.  It  is  only  by  continual  selection  that  this  tendency 
can  be  kept  in  check.  In  order  that  any  part,  organ,  or  quality  may  be 
kept  at  the  maximum  degree  of  development,  it  is  necessary  that  indi- 
viduals possessing  it  in  a  less  perfect  degree,  must  be  prevented  from 
propagation.  If  in  any  species  all  the  individuals  are  allowed  to  equally 
propagate  their  kind,  there  follows  a  mixture  of  all  possible  degrees  of 
perfection,  resulting,  in  course  of  time,  in  a  steady  deterioration  of 
average  development.  This  conclusion  which  biology  is  now  approaching, 
greatly  enlarges  the  Darwinian  hypothesis.  The  selection  of  the  fittest 
acquires  an  immensely  widened  significance,  if  we  realise  it  to  be  an 
inherent  principle  of  life,  that,  by  the  simple  process  of  the  individuals 
of  each  generation  propagating  their  kind  without  selection,  the  higher 
forms  of  life  would  tend  to  gradually  sink  back  again  by  a  degenerative 
process  through  those  stages  of  development  by  which  they  reached  their 
present  position. 


38  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

and  the  more  rigid  the  selection  the  greater  will  be 
the  progress ;  but  rivalry  and  selection  in  some  degree 
there  must  inevitably  be. 

The  first  condition  of  existence  with  a  progressive 
form  is,  therefore,  one  of  continual  strain  and  stress,  and 
along  its  upward  path  this  condition  is  always  main- 
tained. Once  begun,  too,  there  can  be  no  pause  in  the 
advance ;  for  if  by  any  combination  of  circumstances 
the  rivalry  and  selection  cease,  then  progress  ceases 
with  them,  and  the  species  or  group  cannot  maintain 
its  place ;  it  has  taken  the  first  retrograde  step,  and  it 
is  immediately  placed  at  a  disadvantage  with  other 
species,  or  with  those  groups  of  its  own  kind  where  the 
rivalry  still  goes  on,  and  where  selection,  adaptation, 
and  progress  continue  unchecked.  So  keen  is  the 
rivalry  throughout,  that  the  number  of  successful  forms 
is  small  in  comparison  with  the  number  which  have 
failed.  Looking  round  us  at  the  forms  of  life  in  the 
world  at  the  present  day,  we  see,  as  it  were,  only  the 
isolated  peaks  of  the  great  range  of  life,  the  gaps  and 
valleys  between  representing  the  number  of  forms 
which  have  disappeared  in  the  wear  and  stress  of 
evolution. 

It  would  be  a  mistake  to  regard  this  rivalry  from 
a  very  common  point  of  view,  and  to  think  that  the 
extinction  of  less  efficient  forms  has  been  the  same  thing 
as  the  extermination  of  the  individuals  comprising  them. 
This,  as  we  shall  see,  is  not  so.  With  whatever  feelings 
we  may  regard  the  conflict  it  is,  however,  necessary  to 
remember  that  it  is  the  first  condition  of  progress.  It 
leads  continually  onwards  and  upwards.  From  this 
stress  of  nature  has  followed  the  highest  result  we 
are  capable  of  conceiving,  namely,  continual  advance 
towards  higher  and  more  perfect  forms  of  life.  Out 


ii  CONDITIONS  OF  HUMAN  PROGRESS  39 

of  it  has  arisen  every  attribute  of  form,  colour, 
instinct,  strength,  courage,  nobility,  and  beauty  in  the 
teeming  and  wonderful  world  of  life  around  us.  To  it 
we  owe  all  that  is  best  and  most  perfect  in  life  at  the 
present  day,  as  well  as  all  its  highest  promise  for  the 
future.  The  law  of  life  has  been  always  the  same  from 
the  beginning, — ceaseless  and  inevitable  struggle  and 
competition,  ceaseless  and  inevitable  selection  and  rejec- 
tion, ceaseless  and  inevitable  progress. 

When  at  last  we  reach  man,  the  stage  enlarges.  We 
find  him  born  into  the  world  with  two  new  forces  des- 
tined eventually  to  revolutionise  it ;  namely,  his  reason 
and  his  capacity  for  acting  in  concert  with  his  fellows  in 
organised  societies.  The  conditions  and  limitations  of 
existence  have  been  altered,  new  and  complex  condi- 
tions have  arisen,  and  the  great  drama  slowly  unfolds 
itself.  We  shall  presently  have  to  deal  with  those 
special  aspects  which  man's  evolution  in  society  presents ; 
but  in  this  chapter  it  is  necessary  to  keep  the  mind 
fixed  upon  one  fundamental  feature  of  the  development 
which  we  see  in  progress. 

As  we  watch  man's  advance  in  society,  the  convic- 
tion slowly  forces  itself  upon  us  that  the  conflict  which 
has  been  waged  from  the  beginning  of  life  has  not  been 
suspended  in  his  case,  but  that  it  has  projected  itself 
into  the  new  era.  Nay,  more,  all  the  evidence  would 
seem  to  suggest  that  he  remains  as  powerless  to  escape 
from  it  as  the  lowliest  organism  in  the  scale  of  life. 
When  we  look  back  over  history,  and  regard  it  with 
those  feelings  of  humanity  which  have  been  developed 
to  such  an  extraordinary  degree  by  the  process  of 
evolution  which  is  in  progress  in  our  Western  civilisa- 
tion, it  appears  without  doubt  an  unparalleled  record 
of  rivalry  and  stress.  When  man  first  gathered  himself 


40  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

into  societies,  and  for  long  ages  before  we  have  any 
definite  information  about  him,  his  history  must  have 
been  one  of  endless  conflict.  Some  faint  conception  of 
it  may  be  obtained  from  the  study  of  the  history  of 
savage  tribes  of  the  present  day.  The  wars  constantly 
waged  between  societies — those  ceaseless  armed  struggles 
carried  on  by  group  against  group,  and  apparently  con- 
tinued purely  from  a  fighting  instinct — must  have 
formed  one  of  his  most  persistent  characteristics.  The 
strife  can  have  known  no  pause  save  that  enforced  from 
time  to  time  by  exhaustion.  That  whole  sections  of  the 
race  must  in  this  manner  have  repeatedly  disappeared 
before  stronger  and  more  efficient  peoples,  science 
leaves  us  in  little  doubt.  How  the  conflict  must  have 
gone  on  during  all  that  immense  period  when  man 
was  slowly  toiling  up  the  long  slope  which  brings  him 
within  the  purview  of  history,  the  imagination  can  only 
feebly  picture. 

At  last  when  history  takes  account  of  him,  his  onward 
path  appears  to  be  pursued  under  the  same  conditions, 
namely,  continual  rivalry  and  conflict  with  his  fellows. 
The  first  prominent  feature  which  we  have  everywhere 
to  notice  in  groups  and  associations  of  primitive  men  is 
their  military  character.  In  whatever  part  of  the  world 
savage  man  has  been  met  with,  he  is  engaged  in  con- 
tinuous warfare.  The  great  business  in  the  life  of  the 
society  to  which  he  belongs,  is  always  war  with  other 
societies  of  the  same  kind.  To  ensure  success  in  this 
direction,  every  aspiration  of  the  individual  and  the 
community  seems  to  be  directed.  Savage  societies  rise, 
flourish,  and  disappear  with  marvellous  rapidity,  but  the 
secret  of  their  progress  or  decadence  is  always  the  same — 
they  have  grown  strong  or  weak  as  fighting  organisa- 
tions. In  the  individual,  every  attribute  and  quality 


ii  CONDITIONS  OF  HUMAN  PROGRESS  41 

which  tends  to  military  success  is  prized ;  every  other 
is  despised,  or  held  in  less  respect ;  and  all  the  ability 
which  the  society  produces  must  find  an  outlet  in 
this  direction.  The  past  and  present  of  uncivilised 
man  may  be  summed  up  in  a  single  pregnant  sentence 
once  used  by  one  of  our  military  commanders1  in 
recounting  the  history  of  the  tribes  with  which  he 
came  into  conflict  in  different  parts  of  Africa.  "  In 
whatever  negro  people  a  great  lawgiver  has  appeared, 
there  a  powerful  army  and  a  military  spirit  has  been 
called  into  existence,  and  the  nation  has  prospered  until 
its  national  existence  has  been  destroyed  by  a  still 
stronger  people."  This  is  the  brief  history  of  savage 
man  from  the  beginning. 

In  all  this  we  have  to  notice  a  feature  of  im- 
portance. The  progress  of  savage  man,  such  as  it  is, 
is  born  strictly  of  the  conditions  in  which  he  lives. 
Aimless  as  his  history  might  seem  when  viewed  from 
the  level  on  which  it  is  enacted,  there  can  be  no  doubt 
of  the  progress  made.  But  as  to  the  nature  of 
the  progress  there  can  also  be  no  mistake.  It  is 
at  once  both  inevitable  and  involuntary,  the  product 
of  the  strenuous  conditions  under  which  he  lives. 
One  of  the  commonest  ideas  surviving  from  a  pre- 
evolutionary  period  is  that  which  represents  the  stages 
of  man's  social  progress  as  being  steps  in  advance  con- 
sciously and  voluntarily  taken.  Rousseau's  picture  of 
him  leaving  "  the  state  of  nature  "  to  put  "  his  person 
and  his  power  under  the  superior  direction  of  the 
general  will"  with  certain  imaginary  reservations,2 
survives  even  in  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer,  who  sees  him 
leaving  this  state  and  submitting  to  political  subordina- 

1  Lord   Wolseley,  "  The   Negro   as   a  Soldier,"  Fortnightly  Review, 
December  1888.  2    Vide  his  Contrat  Social. 


42  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

tion  "through  experience  of  the  increased  satisfaction 
derived  under  it."1  But  man  in  making  the  momen- 
tous advance  from  a  more  primitive  state  to  the  first 
beginnings  of  organised  society  must  have  acted  without 
any  conscious  regard,  either  to  expediency  or  increase  I 
satisfactions,  or  any  other  of  the  considerations  which 
philosophical  writers  have  so  often  attributed  to  him ; 
his  progress  was  beyond  doubt  the  result  of  the  con- 
ditions of  his  life,  and  was  made  under  force  of 
circumstances  over  which  he  had  no  control.  His 
first  organised  societies  must  have  been  developed 
like  any  other  advantage,  under  the  sternest  conditions 
of  natural  selection.  In  the  flux  and  change  of  life  the 
members  of  those  groups  of  men  which  in  favourable 
conditions  first  showed  any  tendency  to  social  organisa- 
tion, became  possessed  of  a  great  advantage  over  their 
fellows,  and  these  societies  grew  up  simply  because  they 
possessed  elements  of  strength  which  led  to  the  dis- 
appearance before  them  of  other  groups  of  men  with 
which  they  came  into  competition.  Such  societies 
continued  to  flourish  until  they  in  their  turn  had 
to  give  way  before  other  associations  of  men  of 
higher  social  efficiency.  This,  we  may  venture  to 
assert,  is  the  simple  history  of  a  stage  in  human 
development  over  which  much  controversy  has  taken 
place. 

As  we  watch  the  growth  of  the  great  powers 
of  antiquity,  the  Babylonian,  Assyrian,  and  Persian 
empires,  and  the  Greek  states,  we  find  that  it  is  made 
under  the  same  conditions  of  stress  and  conflict.  States 
are  cradled  and  nurtured  in  continuous  war,  and  grow 
up  by  a  kind  of  natural  selection,  having  worsted  and 
subordinated  their  competitors  in  the  long-drawn-out 

1  Data  of  Ethics. 


ii  CONDITIONS  OF  HUMAN  PROGRESS  43 

rivalry  through  which  they  survive.  In  the  Roman 
Empire  we  reach  at  length  the  culminating  point  in 
an  immensely  long  stage  of  human  history,  during  the 
whole  of  which  the  struggle  for  existence  is  waged 
mainly  under  military  forms  between  societies  organised 
for  war  against  each  other.  Ancient  Rome  was  a  small 
city  state  which  grew  to  be  mistress  of  the  world  by  a 
process  of  natural  selection,  its  career  from  the  begin- 
ning being  a  record  of  incessant  fighting.  From  the 
outset  the  Roman  people  devoted  all  their  best  energies 
to  the  furtherance  of  schemes  of  conquest.  The  state 
was  organised  to  ensure  military  success ;  the  highest 
ambition  amongst  the  leading  citizens  was  to  serve  it 
in  a  military  capacity  and  to  bring  about  the  subju- 
gation of  other  states  and  peoples.  The  natural  and 
unquestioned  ambition  of  all  such  organisations  was 
universal  conquest,  and  during  that  long  period  in  the 
world's  history  which  intervened  between  the  year 
675  B.C.,  when  Esar-haddon  king  of  Assyria,  by  the 
conquest  of  Egypt,  brought  the  whole  of  the  ancient 
world  for  a  short  space  under  his  rule,  and  the  final 
break-up  of  the  Roman  Empire,  this  ideal  of  state  policy 
was  ever  practically  before  men's  minds. 

With  the  enormous  significance  of  the  change  in 
the  base  from  which  this  struggle  takes  place  in  our 
Western  civilisation  we  are  not  now  closely  concerned ; 
it  will  be  dealt  with  under  its  fuller  and  wider  aspect  at 
a  later  stage.  At  present  it  is  necessary  to  keep  the 
mind  fixed  on  a  single  feature  of  man's  history,  namely, 
the  stress  and  strain  under  which  his  development  pro- 
ceeds. His  societies,  like  the  individuals  comprising 
them,  are  to  be  regarded  as  the  product  of  the  circum- 
stances in  which  they  exist, — the  survivals  of  the  fittest 
in  the  rivalry  which  is  constantly  in  progress.  Only 


44  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

an  infinitesimal  number  of  them  have  become  known  to 
us  even  in  name,  and  these  have  come  to  occupy  a 
disproportionate  space  in  our  imagination,  because  of 
the  little  corner  of  the  great  stage  of  the  world's  history 
of  which  alone  we  are  able,  even  with  the  aid  of  science, 
to  obtain  a  view. 

We  watch  universal  paralysis  and  slow  decay  follow- 
ing universal  dominion ;  and  even  before  the  downfall 
of  the  Western  Empire  in  476  we  see  the  greater  part 
of  Europe  being  once  more  slowly  submerged  under 
successive  waves  of  more  vigorous  humanity.  From 
the  invasion  of  the  Eoman  Empire  by  the  Visigoths 
in  376,  onwards  for  nearly  seven  centuries,  the  tide 
of  conquest  which  flowed  from  the  East  and  North 
surges  backwards  and  forwards  over  Europe,  making 
its  influence  felt  to  almost  the  extreme  Western  and 
Southern  limits,  and  leaving  at  last,  when  it  sub- 
sides, a  new  deposit  of  humanity  overlying  the  peoples 
the  invaders  found  in  possession,  who  had  in  pre- 
historic times  similarly  superimposed  themselves  on 
still  earlier  peoples. 

In  the  meantime,  in  the  World  wherein  the  founda- 
tions of  our  Western  civilisation  have  been  laid,  un- 
measured forces,  destined  to  play  a  great  part  in  the 
future,  have  begun  slowly  to  gather.  We  descend  into 
the  great  plain  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  history  takes  its 
course  through  this  extraordinary  period — the  seed-time 
of  the  modern  world.  The  conditions  of  the  rivalry 
slowly  change,  even  though  the  direction  of  the  move- 
ment is  not  at  the  time  perceptible ;  but  the  ideas  and 
ideals  of  the  past  continue  to  retain  their  influence  over 
men's  minds.  The  ages  of  faith  prove  to  be  the  ages  of 
fighting  no  less  than  those  which  preceded  them,  and 
the  progress  of  the  world  still  continues  amid  the  sound 


ii  CONDITIONS  OF  HUMAN  PROGRESS  45 

of  battle  and  conflict.  The  Western  powers  gradually 
rise  into  prominence,  the  vigorous  life  which  they 
represent  making  itself  felt  in  ever -widening  circles. 
Out  of  the  more  local  rivalries  the  great  struggle  for 
the  possession  of  the  New  World,  and  for  room  for 
the  expanding  peoples  to  develop,  begins  slowly 
to  take  shape.  The  seventeenth  and  the  eighteenth 
centuries  are  rilled  with  events  marking  the  progress  of 
a  great  ethical  and  political  revolution  destined,  as  we 
shall  see,  to  affect  in  the  most  marked  manner  the 
future  development  of  the  world.  But  these  events  in 
no  way  stay  the  course  of  the  rivalry  which  is  proceed- 
ing ;  the  conflict  of  nations  continues,  and  the  eighteenth 
century  draws  to  a  close  leaving  still  undecided  that 
stupendous  duel  for  an  influential  place  in  the  future 
in  which  the  two  leading  peoples  of  Western  Europe, 
facing  each  other  in  nearly  every  part  of  the  world, 
have  closed. 

We  watch  the  Anglo-Saxon  overflowing  his  bound- 
aries, going  forth  to  take  possession  of  new  territories, 
and  establishing  himself  like  his  ancestors  in  many 
lands.  A  peculiar  interest  attaches  to  the  sight.  He 
has  been  deeply  affected,  more  deeply  than  many 
others,  by  the  altruistic  influences  of  the  ethical  system 
upon  which  our  Western  civilisation  is  founded.  He 
had  seen  races  like  the  ancient  Peruvians,  the  Aztecs, 
and  the  Caribs,  in  large  part  exterminated  by  others, 
ruthlessly  driven  out  of  existence  by  the  more  vigorous 
invader,  and  he  has  at  least  the  wish  to  do  better.  In 
the  North  American  Continent,  in  the  plains  of 
Australia,  in  New  Zealand,  and  South  Africa,  the 
representatives  of  this  vigorous  and  virile  race  are  at 
last  in  full  possession, — that  same  race  which,  with  all 
its  faults,  has  for  the  most  part  honestly  endeavoured  to 


46  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

carry  humanitarian  principles  into  its  dealings  with 
inferior  peoples,  and  which  not  improbably  deserves  the 
tribute  paid  to  it  on  this  account  by  Mr.  Lecky  who 
counts  its  "unwearied,  unostentatious,  and  inglorious 
crusade  against  slavery"  amongst  "the  three  or  four 
perfectly  virtuous  acts  recorded  in  the  history  of 
nations." l 

Yet  neither  wish  nor  intention  has  power  apparently 
to  arrest  a  destiny  which  works  itself  out  irresistibly. 
The  Anglo-Saxon  has  exterminated  the  less  developed 
peoples  with  which  he  has  come  into  competition  even 
more  effectively  than  other  races  have  done  in  like 
case ;  not  necessarily  indeed  by  fierce  and  cruel  wars 
of  extermination,  but  through  the  operation  of  laws  not 
less  deadly  and  even  more  certain  in  their  result.  The 
weaker  races  disappear  before  the  stronger  through  the 
effects  of  mere  contact.  The  Australian  Aboriginal 
retires  before  the  invader,  his  tribes  dispersed,  his 
hunting-grounds  taken  from  him  to  be  utilised  for  other 
purposes.  In  New  Zealand  a  similar  fate  is  overtaking 
the  Maoris.  This  people  were  estimated  to  number 
in  1820,  100,000 ;  in  1840  they  were  80,000  ;  they  are 
now  estimated  at  40,000.2  The  Anglo-Saxon,  driven  by 
forces  inherent  in  his  own  civilisation,  comes  to  develop 
the  natural  resources  of  the  land,  and  the  consequences 
appear  to  be  inevitable.  The  same  history  is  repeating 
itself  in  South  Africa.  In  the  words  used  recently  by  a 
leading  colonist  of  that  country,  "  the  natives  must  go ; 
or  they  must  work  as  laboriously  to  develop  the  land  as 
we  are  prepared  to  do ; "  the  issue  in  such  a  case  being 

1  History  of  European  Moralt,  vol.  L  p.  160. 

2  Vide  Report  by  Registrar-General  of  New  Zealand  on  the  condition 
of  that  country  in  1889,  quoted  in  Nature,  24th  October  1889.     Vide  alsc 
paper  by  F.  W.  Pennefather  in  Journal  of  Anthropological  Institute,  1887. 


ii  CONDITIONS  OF  HUMAN  PROGRESS  47 

already  determined.  In  North  America  we  have  but 
a  later  stage  of  a  similar  history.  Here  two  centuries 
of  conflict  have  left  the  red  men  worsted  at  every 
point,  rapidly  dwindling  in  numbers,  the  surviving 
tribes  hemmed  in  and  surrounded  by  forces  which 
they  have  no  power  to  resist,  standing  like  the 
isolated  patches  of  grass  which  have  not  yet  fallen 
before  the  knives  of  the  machine-mower  in  the  harvest 
field. 

No  motives  appear  to  be  able  to  stay  the  progress 
of  such  movements,  humanise  them  how  we  may.  We 
often  in  a  self-accusing  spirit  attribute  the  gradual  dis- 
appearance of  aboriginal  peoples  to  the  effects  of  our 
vices  upon  them ;  but  the  truth  is  that  what  may  be 
called  the  virtues  of  our  civilisation  are  scarcely  less 
fatal  than  its  vices.  Those  features  of  Western  civilisa- 
tion which  are  most  distinctive  and  characteristic,  and 
of  which  we  are  most  proud,  are  almost  as  disastrous  in 
their  effects  as  the  evils  of  which  complaint  is  so  often 
made.  There  is  a  certain  grim  pathos  in  the  remark 
of  the  author  of  a  paper  on  the  New  Zealand  natives, 
which  appeared  in  the  Journal  of  tJie  Anthropological 
Institute  a  few  years  ago,1  who,  amongst  the  causes 
to  which  the  decay  of  the  natives  might  be  attributed, 
mentioned,  indiscriminately,  drink,  disease,  European 
clothing,  peace,  and  wealth.  In  whatever  part  of 
the  world  we  look,  amongst  civilised  or  uncivilised 
peoples,  history  seems  to  have  taken  the  same  course. 
Of  the  Australian  natives  "  only  a  few  remanents  of  the 
powerful  tribes  linger  on.  .  .  .  All  the  Tasmanians  are 
gone,  and  the  Maoris  will  soon  be  following.  The 
Pacific  Islanders  are  departing  childless.  The  Australian 
natives  as  surely  are  descending  to  the  grave.  Old 

1   1887,  F.  W.  Pennefather. 


48  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAF. 

races  everywhere  give  place  to  the  new."1  There  are 
probably,  says  Mr.  F.  Gal  ton,  "  hardly  any  spots  on  the 
earth  that  have  not  within  the  last  few  thousand  years 
been  tenanted  by  very  different  races."8  Wherever  a 
superior  race  comes  into  close  contact  and  competition 
with  an  inferior  race,  the  result  seems  to  be  much  the 
same,  whether  it  is  arrived  at  by  the  rude  method  of 
wars  of  conquest,  or  by  the  silent  process  which  we  see 
at  work  in  Australia,  New  Zealand,  and  the  North 
American.  Continent,  or  by  the  subtle,  though  no  less 
efficient,  method  with  which  science  makes  us  acquainted, 
and  which  is  in  operation  in  many  parts  of  our  civil- 
isation, where  extinction  works  slowly  and  unnoticed 
through  the  earlier  marriages,  the  greater  vitality,  and 
the  better  chance  of  livelihood  of  the  members  of  the 
superior  race.8 

Yet  we  have  not  perhaps  in  all  this  the  most  striking 
example  of  the  powerlessness  of  man  to  escape  from  one 
of  the  fundamental  conditions  under  which  his  evolution 
in  society  is  proceeding.  There  is  scarcely  any  more 
remarkable  situation  in  the  history  of  our  Western 
civilisation  than  that  which  has  been  created  in  the 
United  States  of  America  by  the  emancipation  of  the 
negro  as  the  result  of  the  War  of  Secession.  The 
meaning  of  this  extraordinary  chapter  in  our  social 
history  has  as  yet  scarcely  been  grasped.  As  the  result 
primarily  of  an  ethical  movement  having  its  roots  far 
back  in  the  past,  the  United  States  abolished  slavery 
with  the  conclusion  of  the  Civil  War  in  1865.  The 
negro  was  raised  to  a  position  of  equality  with  his  late 
masters  in  the  sight  of  the  law,  and  admitted  to  full 

1  J.  Bon  wick,  Journal  of  the  Anthropological  Institute,  1887. 

a  Inquiries  into  Human  Faculty. 
'  Vide  Inquiries  into  Human  Faculty,  by  F.  Galton. 


n  CONDITIONS  OF  HUMAN  PROGRESS  49 

political  rights.  According  to  the  census  of  1890  the 
negroes  and  persons  of  African  descent  in  the  United 
States  numbered  7,470,040,  principally  distributed  in 
some  fifteen  of  the  Southern  States  known  as  the 
"  Black  Belt."  In  some  of  these  states  the  black  popula- 
tion outnumbers  the  white. 

Any  one  who  thinks  that  the  emancipation  of  the  negro 
has  stayed  or  altered  the  inexorable  law  which  we  find 
working  itself  out  through  human  history  elsewhere,  has 
only  to  look  to  the  remarkable  literature  which  this 
question  is  producing  in  the  United  States  at  the  present 
day,  and  judge  for  himself.  The  negro  has  been  emanci- 
pated and  admitted  to  full  voting  citizenship ;  he  has 
grown  wealthy,  and  has  raised  himself  by  education. 
But  to  his  fellow-men  of  a  different  colour  he  remains 
the  inferior  still.  His  position  in  the  United  States 
to  -  day  is  one  of  absolute  subordination,  under  all 
the  forms  of  freedom,  to  the  race  amongst  whom  he 
lives.  To  intermarry  with  him  the  white  absolutely 
refuses ;  he  will  not  admit  him  to  social  equality  on  any 
terms;  he  will  not  even  allow  him  to  exercise  the 
political  power  which  is  his  right  in  theory  where  he 
possesses  a  voting  majority.  Mr.  Laird  Clowes,  whose 
careful  and  detailed  investigation  of  this  remarkable 
question  has  recently  attracted  attention  in  England, 
says  that  the  impartial  observer  might  expect  to  find  in 
some  of  the  coloured  states  of  the  Union  the  government 
almost,  if  not  entirely,  in  the  hands  of  the  negro  and 
coloured  majority ;  but  he  finds  no  trace  of  anything  of 
the  kind.  "  He  finds,  on  the  contrary,  that  the  white 
man  rules  as  supremely  as  he  did  in  the  days  of  slavery. 
The  black  man  is  permitted  to  have  little  or  nothing  to 
say  upon  the  point;  he  is  simply  thrust  on  one  side. 
At  every  political  crisis  the  cry  of  the  minority  is,  '  This 

E 


50  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

is  a  white  man's  question,'  and  the  cry  is  generally 
uttered  in  such  a  tone  as  to  effectually  warn  off  the  black 
man  from  meddling  with  the  matter." l  In  the  midst  of 
democratic  civilisation,  and  under  its  forms  and  cover, 
the  war  of  races  is  waged  as  effectively  and  with 
practically  the  same  results  as  in  any  other  state  of 
society.  Says  Mr.  Clowes  :  "  Throughout  the  South  the 
social  position  of  the  man  in  whose  veins  negro  blood 
courses  is  unalterably  fixed  at  birth.  The  child  may 
grow  to  be  wise,  to  be  wealthy,  to  be  entrusted  even  with 
the  responsibilities  of  office,  but  he  always  bears  with 
him  the  visible  marks  of  his  origin,  and  those  marks 
condemn  him  to  remain  for  ever  at  the  bottom  of  the 
social  ladder.  To  incur  this  condemnation  he  need  not 
be  by  any  means  black.  A  quarter,  an  eighth,  nay,  a 
sixteenth  of  African  blood  is  sufficient  to  deprive  him  of 
all  chances  of  social  equality  with  the  white  man.  For 
the  being  with  the  hated  taint  there  is  positively  no 
social  mercy.  A  white  man  may  be  ignorant,  vicious, 
and  poor.  For  him,  in  spite  of  all,  the  door  is  ever 
kept  open.  But  the  black,  or  coloured  man,  no  matter 
what  his  personal  merits  may  be,  is  ruthlessly  shut  out. 
The  white  absolutely  declines  to  associate  with  him  on 
equal  terms.  A  line  has  been  drawn ;  and  he  who,  from 
either  side,  crosses  that  line  has  to  pay  the  penalty.  If 
it  be  the  negro  who  dares  to  cross,  cruelty  and  violence 
chase  him  promptly  back  again,  or  kill  him  for  his 
temerity.  If  it  be  the  white,  ostracism  is  the  recognised 
penalty.  And  it  is  not  only  the  uneducated  and 
the  easily  prejudiced  who  have  drawn  the  line  thus 
sharply." 2  Many  thoughtful  and  earnest  persons  are  so 
impressed  with  the  gravity  of  the  problem,  that  they 

1  Black  America  (1891),  by  W.  Laird  Clowes,  p.  a 
2  Ibid.  p.  87 


n  CONDITIONS  OF  HUMAN  PROGRESS  51 

recommend  and  seriously  advocate  the  deportation  of  the 
seven  millions  of  the  coloured  race  back  to  their  original 
home  in  Africa  as  the  only  effective  solution.  The 
whites  find  it  simply  intolerable  and  impossible  to  live 
under  the  rule  of  the  blacks,  and  they  are  determined, 
come  what  may,  to  prevent  that  rule.  The  present  state 
of  things  is  not  maintained  simply  by  the  ignorant 
whites.  The  intelligent,  the  educated,  and  the  respected 
give  it  their  countenance  and  support.  Power  is 
maintained  by  the  whites  when  they  are  in  the  minority 
by  fraud,  violence,  and  intimidation  in  default  of  other 
means  ;  yet,  says  Mr.  Clowes,  "  strange  to  say,  even  the 
most  respected  and  (in  ordinary  dealings)  upright  white 
people  of  the  South  excuse  and  defend  this  course  of 
procedure,  and,  stranger  still,  very  many  honourable 
citizens  of  the  North,  Republicans  as  well  as  Democrats, 
do  not  hesitate  to  declare,  '  If  I  were  a  Southern  white 
man  I  should  act  as  the  Southern  white  men  do.'  The 
cardinal  principle  of  the  political  creed  of  99  per  cent  of 
the  Southern  whites  is  that  the  white  man  must  rule  at 
all  costs  and  at  all  hazards.  In  comparison  with  this 
principle  every  other  article  of  political  faith  dwindles 
into  ridiculous  insignificance.  White  domination  dwarfs 
tariff  reform,  protection,  free  trade,  and  the  very  pales 
of  party.  The  white  who  does  not  believe  in  it  above 
all  else  is  regarded  as  a  traitor  and  as  an  outcast.  The 
race  question  is,  in  the  South,  the  sole  question  of 
burning  interest.  If  you  are  sound  on  that  question  you 
are  one  of  the  elect ;  if  you  are  unsound,  you  take  rank 
as  a  pariah  or  as  a  lunatic." : 

1  Black  America  (1891),  by  W.  Laird  Clowes,  p.  15. 

It  would  appear  from  the  last  census  of  the  United  States  that,  despite 
recent  opinions  to  the  contrary,  the  coloured  population  is  not  holding  ita 
own  against  the  white  races  even  in  numbers  in  the  states  best  suited  to 
its  development.  In  the  region  known  as  the  Black  Belt  there  were. 


52  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

All  this,  the  conflict  of  races  before  referred  to,  the 
worsting  of  the  weaker,  none  the  less  effective  even 
when  it  is  silent  and  painless,  the  subordination  or  else 
the  slow  extinction  of  the  inferior,  is  not  a  page  from 
the  past  or  the  distant ;  it  is  all  taking  place  to-day 
beneath  our  eyes  in  different  parts  of  the  world,  and 
more  particularly  and  characteristically  within  the  pale 
of  that  vigorous  Anglo-Saxon  civilisation  of  which  we 
are  so  proud,  and  which  to  many  of  us  is  associated 
with  all  the  most  worthy  ideals  of  liberty,  religion,  and 
government  that  the  race  has  evolved. 

But  it  is  not  until  we  come  to  draw  aside  the  veil 
from  our  civilisation,  and  watch  what  is  taking  place 
within  our  borders  between  the  individuals  and  classes 
comprising  it,  that  we  begin  to  realise,  with  some 
degree  of  clearness,  the  nature  of  this  rivalry  which 
compels  us  to  make  progress  whether  we  will  or  not, 
its  tendency  to  develop  in  intensity  rather  than  to 
disappear,  and  our  own  powerlessness  either  to  stay 
its  course  or  to  escape  its  influence.  We  had,  in  the 
conception  of  the  ancient  state,  as  a  condition  of  society 
in  which  the  struggle  for  existence  was  waged,  mainly 
between  organised  groups  rather  than  between  the 
individuals  comprising  them,  the  key  to  history  before 
the  modern  period.  In  the  later  type  of  civilisation, 
the  conditions  of  the  rivalry  have  greatly  changed ; 
but  if  we  look  closely  at  what  is  taking  place,  we  may 
see  that  there  has  been  no  cessation  or  diminution  of 


in  1890,  6,996,166  coloured  inhabitants,  and  in  1880,  6,142,360.  The 
coloured  element  increased  during  the  decade  at  the  rate  of  13*90  per 
cent.  The  white  population  of  these  states  in  1890  numbered  16,868,205, 
and  in  1880,  13,530,408.  They  increased  during  the  decade  at  the  rate 
of  24*67  per  cent,  or  nearly  twice  as  rapidly  as  the  coloured  element. 
The  interesting  report  on  the  subject  by  the  Superintendent  of  Census 
will  be  found  printed  at  full  in  the  Appendix. 


ii  CONDITIONS  OF  HUMAN  PROGRESS  53 

the  rivalry  itself.  On  the  contrary,  the  significance  of 
the  change  has  consisted  in  the  tendency  to  raise  it  to 
a  higher  level,  to  greatly  enlarge  its  scope  and  its 
efficiency  as  a  cause  of  progress,  by  bringing  all  the 
members  of  the  community  into  it  on  more  equal 
terms,  and  to  render  it  freer  and  fairer,  but,  therefore, 
still  more  strenuous. 

The  movement  of  progressive  societies,  remarks  Sir 
Henry  Maine,  has  been  uniform  in  one  respect ;  through- 
out its  course  we  have  everywhere  to  trace  the  growth 
of  individual  obligation,  and  the  substitution  of  the 
individual  for  the  group  as  the  unit  of  which  the  civil 
laws  take  account.1  In  this  profoundly  significant 
transition  which  has  taken  place  in  our  legal  codes,  we 
have  the  outward  expression  of  the  great  process  of 
development  which  has  worked  itself  out  through  our 
Western  civilisation. 

We  have  only  to  look  round  us  in  the  world  in 
which  we  live  to  see  that  this  rivalry  which  man 
maintains  with  his  fellows  has  become  the  leading 
and  dominant  feature  of  our  civilisation.  It  makes 
itself  felt  now  throughout  the  whole  fabric  of  society. 
If  we  examine  the  motives  of  our  daily  life,  and  of  the 
lives  of  those  with  whom  we  come  in  contact,  we  shall 
have  to  recognise  that  the  first  and  principal  thought 
in  the  minds  of  the  vast  majority  of  us  is  how  to  hold 
our  own  therein.  The  influence  of  the  rivalry  extends 
even  to  the  innermost  recesses  of  our  private  lives. 
In  our  families,  our  homes,  our  pleasures,  in  the 
supreme  moments  of  our  lives,  how  to  obtain  success 
or  to  avoid  failure  for  ourselves,  or  for  those  nearest 
to  us,  is  a  question  of  the  first  importance.  Nearly 
all  the  best  ability  which  society  produces  finds  employ- 

1  Ancient  Law,  p.  168. 


54  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

ment  in  this  manner.  It  is  no  noisy  struggle  ;  it  is  the 
silent  determined  striving  of  vigorous  men  in  earnest, 
who  are  trying  their  powers  to  the  utmost.  It  leaves 
its  mark  everywhere  in  the  world  around  us.  Some  of 
the  most  striking  literature  modern  civilisation  has 
produced  has  taken  the  form  of  realistic  pictures  of 
phases  of  the  struggle  which  are  always  with  us. 

In  our  modern  industrial  societies  nearly  all  classes 
are  involved.  The  springs  of  action  lie  very  deep. 
The  love  of  action,  the  insatiable  desire  for  strenuous 
energetic  labour  is  everywhere  characteristic  of  the 
peoples  who  have  come  to  occupy  the  foremost  places 
in  the  world.  Amongst  the  many  failings  which 
have  been  attributed  to  the  English  character,  by  a 
class  of  foreign  writers  who  have  not  clearly  under- 
stood the  causes  contributing  to  the  extraordinary 
expansion  which  the  English  -  speaking  peoples  have 
undergone  in  modern  times,  has  been  the  supposed 
national  love  for  huckstering  and  trafficking  in  all 
its  forms.  But,  as  Professor  Marshall  has  recently 
correctly  pointed  out,  the  English  "  had  not  originally, 
and  they  have  not  now,  that  special  liking  for  dealing 
and  bargaining,  nor  for  the  more  abstract  side  of 
financial  business,  which  is  found  amongst  the  Jews, 
the  Italians,  the  Greeks,  and  the  Armenians;  trade 
with  them  has  always  taken  the  form  of  action  rather 
than  of  mano3uvring  and  speculative  combination. 
Even  now  the  subtlest  financial  speculation  on  the 
London  Stock  Exchange  is  done  chiefly  by  those  races 
which  have  inherited  the  same  aptitude  for  trading 
which  the  English  have  for  action."1  Our  vital 
statistics  show  that  the  severest  stress,  the  hardest 
work,  and  the  shortest  lives  are  not  so  much  the  lot  of 

1  Principlet  of  Economics,  vol.  i.  pp.  32,  33. 


n  CONDITIONS  OF  HUMAN  PROGRESS  55 

the  poor  as  of  the  business  and  professional  classes. 
The  appetite  for  success  is  really  never  satisfied. 
and  a  deeper  insight  into  the  conditions  of  the  rivalry 
reveals  that  it  is  necessarily  so ;  it  grows  with  eating, 
but  it  remains  insatiable. 

We  shall  perceive,  when  we  understand  the  nature 
of  the  forces  at  work  beneath  the  social  phenomena 
of  our  time,  that  in  whatever  direction  we  may  cast 
our  eyes,  there  is  no  evidence  that  the  rivalry  and 
competition  of  life,  which  has  projected  itself  into 
human  society,  has  tended  to  disappear  in  the  past, 
or  that  it  is  less  severe  amongst  the  most  advanced 
peoples  of  the  present,  or  that  the  tendency  of  the 
progress  we  are  making  is  to  extinguish  it  in  the 
future.  On  the  contrary,  all  the  evidence  points  in 
the  opposite  direction.  The  enormous  expansion  of 
the  past  century  has  been  accompanied  by  two  well- 
marked  features  in  all  lands  affected  by  it.  The 
advance  towards  more  equal  conditions  of  life  has 
been  so  great,  that  amongst  the  more  progressive 
nations  such  terms  as  lower  orders,  common  people, 
and  working  classes  are  losing  much  of  their  old 
meaning,  the  masses  of  the  people  are  being  slowly 
raised,  and  the  barriers  of  birth,  class,  and  privilege 
are  everywhere  being  broken  through.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  pulses  of  life  have  not  slackened 
amongst  us ;  the  rivalry  is  keener,  the  stress  severer, 
the  pace  quicker  than  ever  before. 

Looking  round  at  the  nations  of  to-day  and  noticing 
the  direction  in  which  they  are  travelling,  it  seems 
impossible  to  escape  the  conclusion  that  the  progressive 
peoples  have  everywhere  the  same  distinctive  features. 
Energetic,  vigorous,  virile  life  amongst  them  is  main- 
tained at  the  highest  pitch  of  which  nature  is  capable. 


56  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

They  offer  the  highest  motives  to  emulation ;  amongst 
them  the  individual  is  freest,  the  selection  fullest,  the 
rivalry  fairest.  But  so  also  is  the  conflict  sternest, 
the  nervous  friction  greatest,  and  the  stress  severest. 
Looking  back  by  the  way  these  nations  have  come,  we 
find  an  equally  unmistakable  absence  of  these  qualities 
and  conditions  amongst  the  competitors  they  have 
left  behind.  From  the  nations  who  have  dropped 
out  of  the  race  within  recent  times  backwards  through 
history,  we  follow  a  gradually  descending  series.  The 
contrast  already  to  be  distinguished  between  the  advan- 
cing and  the  unprogressive  peoples  of  European  race  is 
more  noticeable  when  the  former  are  compared  with 
non- European  peoples.  The  difference  becomes  still 
more  marked  when  the  existence  of  the  careless,  shift- 
less, easily  satisfied  negro  of  the  United  States  or  West 
Indies  is  contrasted  with  that  of  the  dominant  race 
amongst  whom  he  lives,  whose  restless,  aggressive, 
high-pitched  life  he  has  neither  the  desire  to  live  nor 
the  capacity  to  endure. 

We  follow  the  path  of  Empire  from  the  stagnant 
and  unchanging  East,  westward  through  peoples  whose 
pulses  beat  quicker,  and  whose  energy  and  activity 
become  more  marked  as  we  advance.  Professor 
Marshall,  who  notices  the  prevailing  energy  and 
activity  of  the  British  people,  and  who  has  recently 
roundly  asserted  that  men  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  races  in 
all  parts  of  the  world  not  only  work  hard  while  about 
it,  but  do  more  work  in  the  year  than  any  other,1  only 
brings  into  prominence  the  one  dominant  feature  of 
all  successful  peoples.  It  is  the  same  characteristic 
which  distinguishes  the  people  of  the  great  Anglo- 
Saxon  republic  of  the  West  whose  writers  continually 

1  Principles  of  Economics,  vol.  i.  p.  730. 


ii  CONDITIONS  OF  HUMAN  PROGRESS  57 

remind  us  that  the  peculiar  endowment  which  its 
people  have  received  from  nature  is  an  additional 
allowance  of  nervous  energy. 

A  similar  lesson  is  emphasised  in  the  northward 
movement  of  rule  and  empire  throughout  historic  times. 
The  successful  peoples  have  moved  westwards  for 
physical  reasons;  the  seat  of  power  has  moved  con- 
tinually northwards  for  reasons  connected  with  the 
evolution  in  character  which  the  race  is  undergoing. 
Man,  originally  a  creature  of  a  warm  climate  and  still 
multiplying  most  easily  and  rapidly  there,  has  not 
attained  his  highest  development  where  the  conditions 
of  existence  have  been  easiest.  Throughout  history 
the  centre  of  power  has  moved  gradually  but  surely  to 
the  north  into  those  stern  regions  where  men  have 
been  trained  for  the  rivalry  of  life  in  the  strenuous 
conflict  with  nature  in  which  they  have  acquired 
energy,  courage,  integrity,  and  those  characteristic 
qualities  which  contribute  to  raise  them  to  a  high  state 
of  social  efficiency.  The  shifting  of  the  centre  of  power 
northwards  has  been  a  feature  alike  of  modern  and  of 
ancient  history.  The  peoples  whose  influence  to-day 
reaches  over  the  greater  part  of  the  world,  both 
temperate  and  tropical,  belong  almost  exclusively  to 
races  whose  geographical  home  is  north  of  the  40th 
parallel  of  latitude.  The  two  groups  of  peoples,  the 
English-speaking  races  and  the  Russians  whose  rule 
actually  extends  over  some  46  per  cent  of  the  entire 
surface  of  the  earth  have  their  geographical  home  north 
of  the  50th  parallel. 

Nor  can  there  be  any  doubt  that  from  these 
strenuous  conditions  of  rivalry  the  race  as  a  whole  is 
powerless  to  escape.  The  conditions  of  progress  may 
be  interrupted  amongst  the  peoples  who  have  long 


58  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP,  n 

held  their  place  in  the  front.  These  peoples  may  fail 
and  fall  behind,  but  progress  continues  nevertheless. 
For  although  the  growth  of  the  leading  shoot  may  be 
for  the  time  arrested,  farther  back  on  the  branch 
other  shoots  are  always  ready  to  take  the  place  of  that 
which  has  ceased  to  advance.  The  races  who  main- 
tain their  places  in  the  van  do  so  on  the  sternest 
conditions.  We  may  regulate  and  humanise  those 
conditions,  but  we  have  no  power  to  alter  them ;  the 
conflict  is  severest  of  all  when  it  is  carried  on  under  the 
forms  of  the  highest  civilisation.  The  Anglo-Saxon 
looks  forward,  not  without  reason,  to  the  day  when  wars 
will  cease ;  but  without  war,  he  is  involuntarily  ex- 
terminating the  Maori,  the  Australian,  and  the  Red 
Indian,  and  he  has  within  his  borders  the  emancipated 
but  ostracised  Negro,  the  English  Poor  Law,  and  the 
Social  Question ;  he  may  beat  his  swords  into  plough- 
shares but  in  his  hands  the  implements  of  industry 
prove  even  more  effective  and  deadly  weapons  than 
the  swords. 

These  are  the  first  stern  facts  of  human  life  and  pro- 
gress which  we  have  to  take  into  account.  They  have 
their  origin  not  in  any  accidental  feature  of  our  history, 
nor  in  any  innate  depravity  existing  in  man.  They 
result,  as  we  have  seen,  from  deep-seated  physiological 
causes,  the  operation  of  which  we  must  always  remain 
powerless  to  escape.  It  is  worse  than  useless  to  obscure 
them  or  to  ignore  them,  as  is  done  in  a  great  part  of 
the  social  literature  of  the  time.  The  first  step  towards 
obtaining  any  true  grasp  of  the  social  problems  of  our 
day  must  be  to  look  fairly  and  bravely  in  the  face  these 
facts  which  lie  behind  them. 


CHAPTER  III 

THERE  IS  NO    RATIONAL    SANCTION    FOR    THE    CONDITIONS 
OF   PROGRESS 

HAVING  endeavoured  to  place  thus  prominently  before 
our  minds  the  conditions  under  which  human  progress 
has  been  made  throughout  the  past,  and  under  which  it, 
so  far,  continues  to  be  made  in  the  midst  of  the  highest 
civilisation  which  surrounds  us  at  the  present,  we  must 
now  direct  our  attention  to  another  striking  and  equally 
important  feature  of  this  progress.  The  two  new  forces 
which  made  their  advent  with  man  were  his  reason,  and 
the  capacity  for  acting,  under  its  influence,  in  concert 
with  his  fellows  in  society.  It  becomes  necessary, 
therefore,  to  notice  for  the  first  time  a  fact  which,  later, 
as  we  proceed,  will  be  brought  into  increasing  promi- 
nence. As  man  can  only  reach  his  highest  development 
and  employ  his  powers  to  the  fullest  extent  in  society, 
it  follows  that  in  the  evolution  we  witness  him 
undergoing  throughout  history,  his  development  as  an 
individual  is  necessarily  of  less  importance  than  his 
development  as  a  social  creature.  In  other  words, 
although  his  interests  as  an  individual  may  remain 
all-important  to  himself,  it  has  become  inevitable  that 
they  must  henceforward  be  subordinated  —  whether 
he  be  conscious  of  it  or  not — to  those  larger  social 


60  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

interests  with  which  the  forces  that  are  shaping  his 
development  have  now  begun  to  operate. 

The  evolutionist  who  endeavours  to  obtain  a  funda- 
mental grasp  of  the  problems  which  human  society 
presents,  will  find,  therefore,  that  there  is  one  point, 
above  all  others,  at  which  his  attention  tends  to  become 
concentrated  —  the  point  where  he  stands,  as  it  were, 
between  man  as  a  member  of  society  endowed  with 
reason  on  the  one  side,  and  all  the  brute  creation  that 
has  gone  before  him  on  the  other.  The  problem  which 
presents  itself  here  is  of  unusual  interest. 

Looking  back  to  the  beginning  of  life,  we  observe 
that  the  progress  made  up  to  this  point  has  been  very 
great,  so  great  indeed,  that  it  is  almost  beyond  the 
power  of  the  imagination  to  grasp  its  full  mean- 
ing and  extent.  We  see  at  one  end  of  the  scale  the 
lowest  forms  of  life,  simple,  unicellular,  almost  structure- 
less and  without  sense  of  any  kind,  and  at  the  other,  we 
have  in  the  highest  forms  below  man,  a  complexity  of 
structure  and  co-ordination  of  function,  which,  to  the 
ordinary  mind,  appears  marvellous  in  the  extreme.  The 
advance  so  far  has  been  vast  and  imposing  ;  but  looking 
at  the  results,  it  is  now  necessary  to  call  particularly  to 
mind  the  teaching  of  evolutionary  science  as  to  the 
manner  in  which  these  results  have  been  obtained. 

Our  admiration  is  excited  by  the  wonderful  attri- 
butes of  life  amongst  the  higher  animals,  but  it  must  be 
remembered  that  the  teaching  of  science  is,  that  natural 
selection  produced  these  results  only  by  weeding 
out,  during  an  immense  series  of  generations,  the  un- 
suitable forms,  and  by  the  gradual  development  of  the 
successful  types  through  the  slow  accumulation  of  useful 
variations  in  the  others.  The  conditions  of  progress 
must,  therefore,  from  the  very  beginning,  have  involved 


in  NO  RA  TIONAL  SANCTION  FOR  PROGRESS  61 

failure  to  reach  the  ordinary  possibilities  of  life  for  large 
numbers.  We  admire  the  wonderful  adaptation  of  many 
of  the  ruminants  to  their  mode  of  life,  the  keen  scent 
by  which  they  distinguish  an  enemy  at  a  distance  which 
seems  remarkable  to  us,  their  wonderful  power  of  vision, 
their  exceeding  fleetness  of  foot,  and  their  graceful  and 
beautiful  forms.  But  the  evolutionist  has  always  before 
him  the  cost  at  which  these  qualities  have  been  obtained. 
He  has  in  mind  the  countless  host  of  individuals  which 
have  fallen  a  prey  to  their  enemies,  or  failed  in  other 
ways  in  the  rivalry  of  life  in  the  immense  period  during 
which  natural  selection  was  at  work,  slowly  accumulat- 
ing the  small  successful  variations,  out  of  which  these 
qualities  have  been  evolved.  It  is  the  same  with  other 
forms  of  life ;  progress  everywhere  is  evident,  but  the 
way  is  strewn  with  the  unsuccessful  which  have  fallen 
in  the  advance.  The  first  condition  of  this  progress  has 
been,  that  all  the  individuals  cannot  succeed ;  for,  as  we 
have  already  seen,  no  form  can  make  any  advance,  or 
even  retain  its  place,  without  deterioration,  .except 
by  carrying  on  the  species  to  a  greater  extent  from 
individuals  above  the  average  than  from  those  below 
it,  and  consequently  by  multiplying  beyond  the 
limits  which  the  conditions  of  existence  comfortably 
allow  for. 

There  is,  therefore,  one  feature  of  the  situation  which 
cannot  be  gainsaid.  If  it  had  been  possible  at  any  time, 
for  all  the  individuals  of  any  form  of  life  to  have  secured 
themselves  against  the  competition  of  other  forms,  it 
would,  beyond  doubt,  have  been  their  interest  to  have 
suspended  amongst  themselves  those  onerous  conditions 
which  thus  prevented  large  numbers  of  their  kind  from 
reaching  the  fullest  possibilities  of  life.  The  conditions 
of  progress,  it  is  true,  might  have  been  suspended,  but 


6a  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

this  could  not  have  given  them  the  slightest  concern. 
The  results  would  only  have  been  visible  after  a  pro- 
longed period,  and  they  could  not  be  expected  to  have 
appeared  to  existing  individuals  as  of  any  importance 
when  weighed  against  their  own  interests  in  the 
present. 

But  now  at  last,  science  stands  confronted  with  a 
creature  differing  in  one  most  important  respect  from  all 
that  have  gone  before  him.  He  is  endowed  with  reason  ; 
a  faculty  which  is  eventually  destined  to  gain  for  him, 
inter  alia,  the  mastery  of  the  whole  earth,  and  to  place 
an  impassable  barrier  between  him  and  all  the  other 
forms  of  life.  As  we  regard  the  problem  which  here 
begins  to  unfold  itself,  it  is  seen  to  possess  features  of 
unusual  interest.  It  would  seem  that  a  conclusion, 
strange  and  unexpected,  but  apparently  unavoidable, 
must  present  itself.  If  the  theories  of  evolutionary 
science  have  been,  so  far,  correct,  then  this  new  factor 
which  has  been  born  into  the  world  must,  it  would 
appear,  have  the  effect  of  ultimately  staying  all  further 
progress.  Naturally  recoiling  from  so  extraordinary  a 
conclusion,  we  return  and  examine  again  the  steps  by 
which  it  has  been  reached,  but  there  seems,  at  first 
sight,  to  be  no  flaw  in  the  process  of  reasoning. 

The  facts  present  themselves  in  this  wise.  Through- 
out the  whole  period  of  development  hitherto  the  con- 
ditions of  progress  have  necessarily  been  incompatible 
with  the  welfare  of  a  large  proportion  of  the  individuals 
comprising  any  species.  Yet  it  is  evident  that  to 
these,  if  they  had  been  able  to  think  and  to  have 
any  voice  in  the  matter,  their  own  welfare  must  have 
appeared  immeasurably  more  important  than  the  future 
of  the  species,  or  than  any  progress,  however  great, 
that  their  kind  might  make  which  thus  demanded 


in  NO  RATIONAL  SANCTION  FOR  PROGRESS  63 

that  they  should  be  sacrificed  to  it.  If  it  had  been 
possible  for  them  to  have  reasoned  about  the  matter,  it 
must,  beyond  doubt,  have  appeared  to  them  that  their 
interests  lay  in  putting  an  immediate  stop  to  those 
onerous  conditions  from  which  progress  resulted,  and 
which  pressed  so  severely  upon  them.  The  advance 
which  the  species  might  be  making  was,  indeed,  nothing 
whatever  to  them ;  their  own  immediate  condition  was 
everything.  A  future  in  which  they  could  have  no 
possible  interest,  must  undoubtedly  have  been  left  to 
take  care  of  itself,  even  though  it  might  involve  the 
suspension  of  the  conditions  of  progress,  the  future 
deterioration  of  their  kind,  and  the  eventual  extinction 
of  the  whole  species. 

Yet  here  at  last  was  a  creature  who  could  reason 
about  these  things  and  who,  when  his  conduct  is 
observed,  it  may  be  noticed,  actually  does  reason  about 
them  in  this  way.  He  is  subject  to  the  same  natural 
conditions  of  existence  as  all  the  forms  of  life  that  have 
come  before  him ;  he  reproduces  his  kind  as  they  do ; 
he  lives  and  dies  subject  to  the  same  physiological  laws. 
To  him,  as  to  the  others,  the  inexorable  conditions  of  life 
render  progress  impossible  in  any  other  way  than  by 
carrying  on  his  kind  from  successful  variations  to  the 
exclusion  of  others ;  by  being,  therefore,  subject  to 
selection ;  by  consequently  reproducing  in  numbers 
beyond  those  which  the  conditions  of  life  for  the  time 
being  comfortably  allow  for ;  and  by  living  a  life  of 
constant  rivalry  and  competition  with  his  fellows  with 
all  the  attendant  results  of  stress  and  suffering  to  some, 
and  failure  to  reach  the  full  possibilities  of  life  to  large 
numbers.  Nay,  more,  it  is  evident  that  his  progress  has 
become  subject  to  these  conditions  in  a  more  stringent 
and  onerous  form  than  has  ever  before  prevailed  in 


64  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHA*. 

the  world.  For  as  he  can  reach  his  highest  de- 
velopment only  in  society,  the  forces  which  are 
concerned  in  working  out  his  evolution  no  longer 
operate  upon  him  primarily  as  an  individual  but  as 
a  member  of  society.  His  interests  as  an  individual 
have,  in  fact,  become  further  subordinated  to  those  of  a 
social  organism,  with  interests  immensely  wider,  and  a 
life  indefinitely  longer  than  his  own.  How  is  the 
possession  of  reason  ever  to  be  rendered  compatible 
with  the  will  to  submit  to  conditions  of  existence  so 
onerous,  requiring  the  effective  and  continual  subordina- 
tion of  the  individual's  welfare  to  the  progress  of  a 
development  in  which  he  can  have  no  personal  interest 
whatever  ? 

The  evolutionist  looks  with  great  interest  for  the 
answer  which  is  to  be  given  to  a  question  of  such 
unusual  importance.  The  new  era  opens,  and  he 
sees  man  following  his  upward  path  apparently  on 
exactly  the  same  conditions  as  have  prevailed  in  the 
past.  Progress  has  not  been  suspended,  nor  have  the 
conditions  which  produced  it  been  in  any  way  altered. 
Man  gathers  himself  into  primitive  societies;  for,  his 
reason  producing  its  highest  results  when  he  acts  in  co- 
operation with  his  fellows,  he  of  necessity  becomes 
social  in  his  habits  through  the  greater  efficiency  of 
his  social  groups  in  the  rivalry  of  existence.  His 
societies  in  like  manner  continue  in  a  state  of  rivalry 
with  each  other,  the  less  efficient  gradually  disappearing 
before  the  more  vigorous  types.  The  strife  is  incessant; 
the  military  type  becomes  established,  and  attains  at 
length  a  great  development.  All  the  old  conditions 
appear  to  have  survived  into  the  new  era.  The  resources 
of  the  individual  are  drawn  upon  to  the  fullest  extent 
to  keep  the  rivalry  at  the  highest  pitch  ;  the  winning 


in  NO  RATIONAL  SANCTION  FOR  PROGRESS  65 

societies  gradually  extinguish  their  competitors,  the 
weaker  peoples  disappear  before  the  stronger,  and  the 
subordination  and  exclusion  of  the  least  efficient  is  still 
the  prevailing  feature  of  advancing  humanity.  Slowly, 
too,  as  we  have  seen,  the  rivalry  within  those  societies 
becomes  two-sided.  Other  things  being  equal,  the  most 
vigorous  social  systems  are  those  in  which  are  combined 
the  most  effective  subordination  of  the  individual  to  the 
interests  of  the  social  organism  with  the  highest  develop- 
ment of  his  own  personality.  A  marked  feature,  there- 
fore, of  all  the  most  advanced  and  progressive  societies 
is  the  high  pitch  at  which  the  rivalry  of  life  is  maintained 
within  the  community,  the  freedom  of  the  conditions 
of  this  rivalry,  and  the  display  of  energy  and  the 
constant  stress  and  strain  which  accompany  it.  Look 
where  he  will,  the  evolutionist  finds  no  cessation  of  the 
strenuous  conditions  which  have  prevailed  from  the 
beginning  of  life ;  the  tendency,  on  the  contrary,  seems 
to  be  to  render  them  more  severe.  Progress  continues 
to  be  everywhere  marked  with  the  same  inevitable 
consequences  of  failure  and  exclusion  from  the  highest 
possibilities  of  life,  for  a  large  proportion  of  the 
individuals  concerned. 

The  possession  of  reason  must,  it  would  seem,  in- 
volve the  opportunity  of  escape  from  the  conditions  men- 
tioned. The  evidence  would,  however,  appear  to  point 
indubitably  to  the  conclusion  that  these  conditions  can 
have  had  no  sanction  from  reason  for  the  mass  of  the 
individuals  subjected  to  them.  It  may  be  held  that 
they  are  conditions  essential  to  progress,  and  that  the 
future  interests  of  the  society  to  which  we  belong,  and 
even  of  the  race,  would  inevitably  suffer  if  they  were 
suspended.  But  this  is  not  an  argument  to  weigh  with 
the  individual  who  is  concerned  with  his  own  interest* 


66  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

in  the  present  and  not  with  the  possible  interests  in 
the  future  of  society  or  the  race.  It  seems  impossible 
to  conceive  how  the  conditions  of  progress  could  have 
had  any  rational  sanction  for  the  host  of  exterminated 
peoples  of  whom  a  vision  rises  before  us  when  we 
compare  the  average  European  brain  of  to-day  with 
that  of  the  lowest  savages,  and  consider  the  steps  by 
which  alone  the  advance  can  have  been  made.  The 
conditions  of  progress  may  be  viewed  complacently  by 
science,  but  it  can  hardly  be  said  that  they  can  have 
any  rational  sanction  for  the  Red  Indian  in  process  of 
extermination  in  the  United  States,  for  the  degraded 
negro  in  the  same  country,  for  the  Maori  in  New  Zea- 
land, or  for  the  Aboriginal  in  Australia. 

The  same  conclusion  is  not  less  certain,  although  it 
may  be  less  obvious  elsewhere.  The  conditions  of  ex- 
istence cannot  really  have  had  any  rational  sanction  for 
the  great  mass  of  the  people  during  that  prolonged 
period  when  societies  were  developed  under  stress  of 
circumstances  on  a  military  footing.  An  inevitable 
feature  of  all  such  societies  was  the  growth  of  powerful 
aristocratic  corporations,  and  autocratic  classes  living 
in  wealth  and  power  and  keeping  the  people  in  sub- 
jection while  despising  and  oppressing  them.  It  is 
no  answer,  it  must  be  observed,  to  say  that  these  societies 
were  a  natural  product  of  the  time,  and  that  if  any 
social  group  had  not  been  so  organised,  it  must  ulti- 
mately have  disappeared  before  stronger  rivals.  We 
can  scarcely  shut  our  eyes  to  the  fact  that  the  future 
did  not  concern  the  existing  members,  and  that  to  the 
great  mass  of  the  people  in  these  societies,  who  lived 
and  suffered  in  subjection  to  the  dominant  class  which 
a  military  organisation  produced,  the  future  of  society, 
or  even  of  the  race,  was  a  matter  of  perfect  indifference, 


in  NO  RATIONAL  SANCTION  FOR  PROGRESS  67 

compared  with  the  actual  and  obvious  hardships  of  their 
own  oppressed  condition  in  the  present. 

When  we  come  to  deal  with  society  as  it  exists 
in  the  highest  and  most  advanced  civilisations  of  our 
time,  and  put  the  same  question  to  ourselves  as  re- 
gards the  conditions  of  existence  for  the  masses  of  the 
people  there,  it  is  startling  to  find  that  we  are  com- 
pelled to  come  to  a  like  conclusion.  The  conditions  of 
existence  even  in  such  communities  can  apparently 
have  no  rational  sanction  for  a  large  proportion  of  the 
individuals  comprising  them.  When  the  convenient 
fictions  of  society  are  removed,  and  examination  lays 
bare  the  essential  conditions  of  life  in  the  civilisation 
in  which  we  are  living,  the  truth  stands  out  in  its 
naked  significance.  We  are  speaking,  it  must  be 
remembered,  of  a  rational  sanction,  and  reason  has, 
in  an  examination  of  this  kind,  nothing  to  do  with 
any  existence  but  the  present,  which  it  insists  it  is  our 
duty  to  ourselves  to  make  the  most  of.  The  prevailing 
conditions  of  existence  can,  therefore,  have  no  such 
sanction  for  large  masses  of  the  people  in  societies 
where  life  is  a  long  onerous  rivalry,  where  in  the 
nature  of  things  it  is  impossible  for  all  to  attain  to 
success,  and  where  the  many  work  and  suffer,  and  only 
the  few  have  leisure  and  ease.  Regard  it  how  we  may, 
the  conclusion  appears  inevitable,  that,  to  the  great 
masses  of  the  people,  the  so-called  lower  classes,  in  the 
advanced  civilisations  of  to-day,  the  conditions  under 
which  they  live  and  work  are  still  without  any  rational 
sanction. 

That  this  is  no  strained  and  exaggerated  view,  but 
the  sober  truth,  a  little  reflection  must  convince  any 
conscientious  observer.  If  we  look  round  and  endeavour 
to  regard  sympathetically,  and  yet  as  far  as  possible 


68  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

without  bias,  the  remarkable  social  phenomena  of  our 
time  in  Germany,  France,  America,  and  England,  we 
shall  find  in  the  utterances  of  those  who  speak  in  the 
name  of  the  masses  of  the  people  a  meaning  which 
cannot  be  mistaken.  Whatever  may  be  said  of  that 
class  of  literature  represented  in  Germany  by  Karl 
Marx's  Kapital,  in  America  by  Mr.  Henry  George's  Pro- 
gress and  Poverty,  and  Mr.  Bellamy's  Looking  Back- 
ward, and  in  England  by  the  Fabian  Essays,  it  is 
deserving  of  the  most  careful  study  by  the  student  of 
social  phenomena ;  for  it  is  here,  and  here  only,  that  he 
is  enabled  to  see  with  the  eyes,  and  to  think  through 
the  minds  of  those  who  see  and  reason  for  that  large 
class  of  the  population  who  are  confronted  with  the 
sterner  realities  of  our  civilisation.  Whatever  else  may 
be  the  effect  of  a  close  study  of  this  literature,  it  must 
leave  the  impression  on  the  mind  of  an  unprejudiced 
observer,  that  in  our  present-day  societies,  where  we 
base  on  the  fabric  of  political  equality  the  most 
obvious  social  and  material  inequality,  the  lower  classes 
of  our  population  have  no  sanction  from  their  reason 
for  maintaining  existing  conditions.  When  all  due 
allowance  is  made  for  the  misstatements  and  exag- 
gerations with  which  much  of  this  kind  of  literature 
abounds,  the  evolutionist  who  understands  his  subject 
sees  clearly  enough  that  the  main  facts  of  the  funda- 
mental constitution  of  society  are  therein  represented 
with  sufficient  approximation  to  truthfulness  to  quite 
justify  this  conclusion. 

No  greater  mistake  can  be  made  than  to  suppose 
that  the  arguments  of  these  writers  have  been  effectively 
answered  in  that  class  of  literature  which  is  usually 
to  be  met  with  on  the  other  side.  What  science  has 
for  the  most  part  attempted  to  do — and  what,  as  we  shall 


in  NO  RATIONAL  SANCTION  FOR  PROGRESS  69 

see  when  we  come  to  deal  with  socialism,  she  has  not 
the  least  difficulty  in  succeeding  in  doing — is  to  prove 
that  the  constitution  of  society  proposed  by  socialist 
writers  could  not  be  permanently  successful,  and  that 
it  must  result  in  the  ultimate  ruin  of  any  people  adopt- 
ing it.  But  this  is  not  a  practical  argument  against 
socialism.  No  lesson  of  the  past  or  of  the  present  can 
be  more  obvious  than  that  men  never  have  been,  and 
are  not  now,  influenced  in  the  least  by  the  opinions  of 
scientists  or  any  other  class  of  persons,  however  wise,  as 
to  what  the  result  of  present  conduct,  apparently  cal- 
culated to  benefit  themselves,  may  be  on  generations 
yet  unborn.  "  How  many  workmen  of  the  present  day," 
pertinently  asks  a  recent  writer,  "would  refuse  an 
annuity  of  two  hundred  a  year,  on  the  chance  that  by 
doing  so  they  might  raise  the  rate  of  wages  1  per  cent 
in  the  course  of  three  thousand  years  ?  "  But  why  talk 
of  three  thousand  years  ?  he  says.  "  Our  care  as  a 
matter  of  fact  does  not  extend  three  hundred.  Do 
any  of  us  deny  ourselves  a  single  scuttle  of  coals  so 
as  to  make  our  coal-fields  last  for  one  more  genera- 
tion ? "  And  he  answers  truly  that  it  is  perfectly  plain 
we  do  not.  The  future  is  left  to  take  care  of  itself.1 
The  evolutionist  may  be  convinced  that  what  is  called 
the  exploitation  of  the  masses,  is  but  the  present-day 
form  of  the  rivalry  of  life  which  he  has  watched  from 
the  beginning,  and  that  the  sacrifice  of  some  in  the  cause 
of  the  future  interests  of  the  whole  social  organism  is  a 
necessary  feature  of  our  progress.  But  this  is  no  real 
argument  addressed  to  those  who  most  naturally  object 
to  be  exploited  and  sacrificed,  and  who  in  our  modern 
societies  are  entrusted  with  power  to  give  political  effect 

1  "  The    Scientific  Basis  of  Optimism,"  W.  H.  Mallock,  Fortnightly 
Review*  January  188Q. 


70  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

to  their  objections.  Science  may  be  painfully  convinced 
that  the  realisation  of  the  hopes  of  socialism  is  quite 
incompatible  with  the  ultimate  interests  of  a  progressive 
society ;  but  it  would  still  be  irrational  to  expect  even 
this  consideration  to  generally  affect  the  conduct  of 
those  who  are  concerned  not  with  the  problematic 
interests  of  others  in  the  distant  future,  but  with  their 
own  interests  in  the  actual  present. 

It  may  be  objected  that  the  standpoint  from  which 
we  have  viewed  existing  society  is  not  a  fair  one,  and 
that  we  should  not  take  the  utterances  of  fanatical  social 
reformers ]  as  representative  of  the  reasoning  to  which 
the  lower  classes  at  the  present  day  find  themselves 
driven  when  they  consider  their  position.  We  have, 
however,  only  to  look  round  us  to  find  that  striking 
confirmation  comes  from  many  other  quarters  of  the 
view  that  the  prevailing  conditions  of  existence  have 
no  rational  sanction  for  the  masses  of  the  population 
who  submit  to  them.  We  have  but  to  observe  closely 
the  literature  of  our  time  to  notice  that  there  appears 
to  be  an  inherent  tendency  for  a  like  conclusion  to 
come  to  the  surface  in  the  utterances  of  many  of  the 
philosophical  and  scientific  writers  who  discuss  social 
questions.  The  voice  of  reason  could  hardly  find  fitter 
utterance  than  in  the  words  of  Professor  Huxley 
already  quoted,  in  which,  while  telling  us  that  at  best 

1  Mr.  Henry  George  does  not  mince  matters.  He  says :  **  It  is  my 
deliberate  opinion  that  if,  standing  on  the  threshold  of  being,  one  were 
given  the  choice  of  entering  life  as  a  Terra  del  Fuegan,  a  Black  Fellow  of 
Australia,  an  Esquimaux  in  the  Arctic  circle,  or  among  the  lowest  classes 
in  such  a  highly  civilised  country  as  Great  Britain,  he  would  make 
infinitely  the  better  choice  in  selecting  the  lot  of  the  savage  "  (Progress 
and  Poverty,  chap.  ii.  book  v.)  As  Mr.  George  sees  practically  the  same 
social  conditions  throughout  the  greater  part  of  our  Western  civilisation, 
including  the  United  States,  we  must  take  it  that  this  condemnation 
applies  to  all  our  advanced  societies. 


in  NO  RATIONAL  SANCTION  FOR  PROGRESS  71 

our  civilisation  does  not  embody  any  worthy  ideal,  or 
possess  the  merit  of  stability,  he  does  not  hesitate  to 
further  express  the  opinion  that  "  if  there  is  no  hope 
of  a  large  improvement  of  the  condition  of  the  greater 
parfc  of  the  human  family  " — mark  the  uncompromising 
sweep  of  the  words — he  would  hail  the  advent  of  some 
kindly  comet  to  sweep  it  all  away.  "  What  profits  it," 
he  asks  pertinently,  "  to  the  human  Prometheus  that  he 
has  stolen  the  fire  of  heaven  to  be  his  servant,  and  that 
the  spirits  of  the  earth  and  the  air  obey  him,  if  the 
vulture  of  Pauperism  is  eternally  to  tear  his  very  vitals 
and  keep  him  on  the  brink  of  destruction  ? " 

But  it  is  not  that  Professor  Huxley,  and  those  who 
feel  with  him,  hold  any  large  hope  of  improvement. 
He  has  told  us  elsewhere,  and  more  recently,  that  the 
observer  "  must  shut  his  eyes  if  he  would  not  see  that 
more  or  less  enduring  suffering  is  the  meed  of  both 
vanquished  and  victor  " l  in  our  society,  and  that  nature 
therein  "wants  nothing  but  a  fair  field  and  free  play 
for  her  darling  the  strongest." 2  The  condition  of  life 
which  the  French  emphatically  call  la  mis&re,  that  in 
which  the  prospect  of  even,  steady,  and  honest  industry 
is  a  life  of  unsuccessful  battling  with  hunger,  rounded 
by  a  pauper's  grave,  he  holds  to  be  the  permanent 
condition  of  a  large  proportion  of  the  masses  of  the 
people  in  our  civilisation.  He  says :  "  Any  one  who 
is  acquainted  with  the  state  of  the  population  of  all 
great  industrial  centres,  whether  in  this  or  other 
countries,  is  aware  that,  amidst  a  large  and  increasing 
body  of  that  population,  la  misbre  reigns  supreme.  I 
have  no  pretensions  to  the  character  of  a  philanthropist, 
and  I  have  a  special  horror  of  all  sorts  of  sentimental 

1  Social  Diseases  and  Worse  Remedies,  1891,  JX  18. 
8  Ibid.  p.  24. 


72  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

rhetoric;  I  am  merely  trying  to  deal  with  facts,  to 
some  extent  within  my  own  knowledge,  and  further 
evidenced  by  abundant  testimony,  as  a  naturalist ;  and 
I  take  it  to  be  a  mere  plain  truth  that,  throughout 
industrial  Europe,  there  is  not  a  single  large  manufac- 
turing city  which  is  free  from  a  vast  mass  of  people 
whose  condition  is  exactly  that  described,  and  from  a 
still  greater  mass  who,  living  just  on  the  edge  of  the 
social  swamp,  are  liable  to  be  precipitated  into  it  by 
any  lack  of  demand  for  their  produce.  And,  with 
every  addition  to  the  population,  the  multitude  already 
sunk  in  the  pit  and  the  number  of  the  host  sliding 
towards  it  continually  increase." l 

Here  we  have  not  the  utterance  of  a  fanatic,  but  the 
matured  deliberate  opinion  of  that  leader  of  science  in 
England,  who,  perhaps  more  than  any  of  his  contem- 
poraries, has  insisted  that  he  has  made  it  the  highest 
aim  and  the  consistent  endeavour  of  a  lifetime  to  bring 
us  to  look  at  things  from  the  point  of  view  of  reason 
alone.  It  is  an  opinion  as  to  the  constitution  of  society, 
not  be  it  remembered  in  some  past  and  distant  epoch, 
but  of  society  in  the  midst  of  the  highest  civilisation  of 
the  present  day,  and  at  the  highest  point  which  human 
progress  has  reached.  Nothing  can  be  clearer  than  the 
meaning  of  that  opinion  ;  it  is  a  deliberate  verdict  that 
the  conditions  of  life  in  the  advanced  societies  of  to-day 
are  without  any  sanction  from  reason  for  the  masses  of 
the  people. 

Nor  if  we  turn  to  the  facts  upon  which  such  a 
judgment  may  be  founded  do  we  find  any  reason  for 
supposing  that  it  is  not  justifiable.  The  remarkable 
series  of  statistical  inquiries  into  the  condition  of  the 
people  in  London,  recently  undertaken  by  Mr.  Charles 

1  Social  Diseases  and  Worse  Remedies,  1891,  pp.  32,  33. 


ni  NO  RATIONAL  SANCTION  FOR  PROGRESS  73 

Booth  and  his  assistants,  has  brought  out  in  a  far  more 
impressive  manner  than  any  sensational  literature  ever 
could  do,  what  is  perhaps  the  most  noteworthy  aspect 
of  the  life  of  the  masses  in  such  a  centre  of  our  civilisa- 
tion, namely,  the  enormous  proportion  of  the  population 
which  exists  in  a  state  of  chronic  poverty.  The  total 
percentage  of  the  population  found  to  be  "  in  poverty," 
as  the  result  of  these  inquiries,  is  stated  to  be  307  per 
cent  for  all  London.  This  very  large  percentage  does 
not,  it  must  be  understood,  include  any  of  the  "  regu- 
larly employed  and  fairly  paid  working  class."  Despite 
the  enormous  accumulation  of  wealth  in  the  richest 
city  in  the  world,  the  entire  middle  and  upper  classes 
number  only  17 '8  per  cent  of  the  whole  population. 
In  estimating  the  total  percentage  of  the  population  of 
London  "in  poverty,"  the  rich  districts  are  of  course 
taken  with  the  poor,  but  in  37  districts,  each  with  a  total 
population  of  over  30,000,  and  containing  altogether 
1,179,000  persons,  the  proportion  in  poverty  in  no  case 
falls  below  40  per  cent,  and  in  some  of  them  it  reaches 
60  per  cent.1  It  is  impossible  to  rise  from  the  study  of 
the  bulky  volumes  containing  the  enormous  quantity 
of  detail  which  lies  behind  these  bare  figures  without 
feeling  that,  while  making  all  possible  reservations  and 
allowances,  the  evidence  goes  far  to  justify  even  the 
strongest  words  of  Professor  Huxley. 

Nor  must  these  features  of  our  civilisation  be  held 
to  be  peculiar  to  London.  Other  European  cities  have 
a  like  tale  to  tell.  Even  when  we  turn  to  the  great 
centres  of  population  in  the  New  World  we  find  the 
same  conditions  of  life  reproduced ;  the  same  cease- 
less competition,  the  same  keen  struggle  for  employment 

1  Labour  and  Life  of  the  People :  London.     Edited  by  Charles  Booth, 
1891,  vol.  ii.  part  1,  chapter  ii 


74  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

and  for  the  means  of  existence ;  the  same  want,  failure, 
and  misery  meet  us  on  every  side.  And  we  find  these 
conditions  denounced  by  a  great  body  of  social  writers 
and  social  revolutionists,  from  Mr.  Henry  George  and 
Mr.  Bellamy  onwards,  in  just  the  same  unmeasured 
terms  as  in  the  Old  World,  and  with  perhaps  even  more 
bitterness  and  severity. 

If  we  ask  ourselves,  therefore,  what  course  it  is  the 
interests  of  the  masses  holding  political  power  in  our 
advanced  societies  to  pursue  from  the  standpoint  of 
reason,  it  seems  hardly  possible  to  escape  the  conclusion 
that  they  should  in  self-interest  put  an  immediate  end 
to  existing  social  conditions.  Man  in  these  societies 
has  placed  an  impassable  barrier  between  him  and  the 
brutes,  and  even  between  him  and  his  less  developed 
fellow-creatures.  He  no  longer  fears  the  rivalry  or 
competition  of  either.  The  interest  of  the  masses  in 
such  societies  appears,  therefore,  clearly  to  be  to  draw 
a  ring  fence  round  their  borders;  to  abolish  competi- 
tion within  the  community ;  to  suspend  the  onerous 
rivalry  of  individuals  which  presses  so  severely  on 
all ;  to  organise,  on  socialistic  principles,  the  means  of 
production ;  and  lastly,  and  above  all,  to  regulate  the 
population  so  as  to  keep  it  always  proportional  to  the 
means  of  comfortable  existence  for  all.  In  a  word,  to 
put  an  end  to  those  conditions  which  the  evolutionist 
perceives  to  be  inevitably  and  necessarily  associated 
with  progress  now,  and  to  have  been  so  associated  with 
it,  not  only  from  the  beginning  of  human  society,  but 
from  the  beginning  of  life. 

With  whatever  intention  the  evolutionist  may  set 
out,  he  will  speedily  discover,  if  he  carry  his  analysis 
far  enough,  that  so  far  from  society  existing  firmly 
based  on  universal  logic  and  reason,  for  large  masses  of 


in  NO  RA  TIONAL  SANCTION  FOR  PROGRESS  75 

the  population,  alike  in  past  stages  of  our  history  and  in 
the  midst  of  the  highest  civilisations  of  the  present  day, 
reason  has  been,  and  continues  to  be,  unable  to  offer  any 
sanction  for  the  prevailing  conditions  of  life.  The  con- 
clusion which  gradually  forces  itself  upon  his  mind 
appears  surprising  at  first  sight,  but  there,  nevertheless, 
seems  to  be  no  escape  from  it.  It  is,  that  the  only 
social  doctrines  current  in  the  advanced  societies  of  to- 
day which  have  the  assent  of  reason  for  the  masses  are 
the  doctrines  of  socialism.  These  doctrines  may  be,  he 
may  be  convinced,  utterly  destructive  to  the  prospects 
of  further  progress,  and  to  the  future  interests  of  society ; 
but  he  is  compelled  to  admit  that  this  is  no  concern  of 
the  individual  whose  interest  it  is  not  to  speculate  about 
a  problematical  future  for  unborn  generations,  but  to 
make  the  best  of  the  present  for  himself  according  to 
his  lights.  Undoubtedly,  as  John  Stuart  Mill  was  clear- 
sighted enough  to  observe,  if,  apart  from  all  specula- 
tions as  to  the  regeneration  of  society  in  the  future, 
the  choice  were  to  be  "between  communism  with  all 
its  chances  and  the  present  state  of  society  with  all 
its  sufferings  and  injustices  ...  all  the  difficulties  great 
or  small  of  communism  would  be  but  as  dust  in  the 
balance."1 

It  is  necessary,  if  we  would  understand  the  nature 
of  the  problem  with  which  we  have  to  deal,  to  disabuse 
our  minds  of  the  very  prevalent  idea  that  the  doctrines 
of  socialism  are  the  heated  imaginings  of  unbalanced 
brains.  They  are  nothing  of  the  kind ;  they  are  the 
truthful  unexaggerated  teaching  of  sober  reason.  Nor 
can  we  stop  here.  It  is  evident  that  any  organisation 
of  society  with  a  system  of  rewards  according  to  natural 
ability  can  have  no  ultimate  sanction  in  reason  for  all 

1  Principles  of  Political  Economy,  p.  128. 


76  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

the  individuals.  For  as  the  teaching  of  reason  un- 
doubtedly is  that  we  are  all  the  creatures  of  inheritance 
and  environment,  and  that  none  of  us  is  responsible  for 
his  abilities  or  for  the  want  of  them,  so  in  reason  all 
should  share  alike.  Their  welfare  in  the  present 
existence  is  just  as  important  to  the  ungifted  as 
to  the  gifted,  and  any  regulation  that  the  former 
should  fare  any  worse  than  the  latter  must  be  ulti- 
mately, however  we  may  obscure  it,  a  rule  of  brute 
force  pure  and  simple.  There  can  be  to  these  no  rational 
sanction  for  any  organisation  of  society  other  than 
that  under  which  all  men  should  fare  exactly  alike, 
the  wise  and  the  stupid,  the  gifted  and  the  ungifted. 
It  would  be  an  extremely  difficult  if  not  an  impossible 
task  to  find  any  halting -place  for  reason  before  the 
doctrines  of  anarchy,  the  advocates  of  which,  in  the 
words  of  the  anarchist  Michael  Bakunin,  "  object  to  all 
authority  and  all  influence,  privileged,  patented,  official, 
and  legal,  even  when  it  proceeds  from  universal  suffrage, 
convinced  that  it  must  always  turn  to  the  profit  of 
a  domineering  and  exploiting  minority  against  the 
interest  of  the  immense  majority  enslaved."  Reason 
may  moderate  the  terms  in  which  this  conception  is 
expressed,  and  it  might,  and  probably  would,  transpose 
the  terms  majority  and  minority  as  used  therein,  but  it 
would  find  it  difficult  to  show  any  convincing  cause  to 
an  absolutely  unbiassed  mind  for  otherwise  withholding 
its  assent  to  even  this  extreme  view  of  society.1 

1  We  too  readily  assume  that  from  the  rationalistic  point  of  view 
there  is  in  the  nature  of  things  a  sanction  for  our  conduct  in  society 
other  than  that  which  a  rule  of  force  (maintained  by  the  will  of  the 
majority  or  of  a  ruling  class)  provides.  To  commit  a  fraud  on  a  railway 
company  is  an  act  which  would  probably  be  condemned  by  many 
socialists  from  other  motives  than  mere  regard  for  its  inexpediency. 
But  there  are  others  who  do  not  hesitate  to  carry  the  logical  process 
out  to  the  end.  Mr.  Belfort  Bax,  in  his  Religion  of  Socialism  (published 


ill  NO  RA  T1ONAL  SANCTION  FOR  PROGRESS  77 

The  extraordinary  character  of  the  problem  presented 
by  human  society  begins  thus  slowly  to  come  into  view. 
We  find  man  making  continual  progress  upwards, 
progress  which  it  is  almost  beyond  the  power  of  the 
imagination  to  grasp.  From  being  a  competitor  of  the 
brutes  he  has  reached  a  point  of  development  at  which 
he  cannot  himself  set  any  limits  to  the  possibilities 
of  further  progress,  and  at  which  he  is  evidently 
marching  onwards  to  a  high  destiny.  He  has  made 
this  advance  under  the  sternest  conditions,  involving 
rivalry  and  competition  for  all,  and  the  failure  and 
suffering  of  great  numbers.  His  reason  has  been,  and 
necessarily  continues  to  be,  a  leading  factor  in  this 
development;  yet,  granting,  as  we  apparently  must 
grant,  the  possibility  of  the  reversal  of  the  conditions 

by  Swan  Sonnenschein  &  Co.  in  their  "  Social  Science "  series),  maintains 
that  "a  waft  of  healthy  moral  instinct  whispers  to  a  man  that  it  is 
not  the  same  thing  to  '  defraud '  a  '  company '  as  to  rob  his  neighbour." 
Addressing  the  railway  company  he  says  :  "  Business  is  business  ;  let  us 
have  no  sentimentality.  We  are  on  a  footing  of  competition,  only  that  it 
is  not  '  free,'  seeing  that  you  have  the  law  on  your  side.  However,  let 
that  bide.  Your  'business'  is  to  get  as  much  money-value  as  possible 
out  of  me  the  passenger  on  your  line  ('conveyance'  being  the  specific 
form  of  social  utility  your  capital  works  in,  in  order  to  realise  itself 
as  surplus  value),  and  to  give  as  little  as  possible  in  return,  only  in  fact 
so  much  as  will  make  your  line  pay.  My  '  business,'  as  an  individual 
passenger,  on  the  contrary,  is  to  get  as  much  use- value,  to  derive  as 
much  advantage  from  the  social  function  which  you  casually  perform 
in  pursuance  of  your  profit,  as  I  possibly  can,  and  to  give  you  as  little 
as  possible  in  return.  You  seek  under  the  protection  of  the  law  to  guard 
yourself  from  '  fraud,'  as  you  term  it  Good.  If  I  can  evade  the  law 
passed  in  your  interest  and  elude  your  vigilance,  I  have  a  perfect  right  to 
do  so,  and  my  success  in  doing  so  will  be  the  reward  of  my  ingenuity. 
If  I  fail  I  am  only  an  unfortunate  man.  The  talk  of '  dishonesty '  or 
'  dishonour '  where  no  moral  obligation  or  '  duty '  can  possibly  exist  is 
absurd.  You  choose  to  make  certain  arbitrary  rules  to  regulate  the 
commercial  game.  I  decline  to  pledge  myself  to  be  bound  by  them, 
and  in  so  doing  I  am  clearly  within  my  moral  right.  We  each  try  to 
get  as  much  out  of  the  other  as  we  can,  you  in  your  way,  I  in  mine. 
Only,  I  repeat,  you  are  backed  by  the  law,  I  am  not  That  is  all  the 
difference." 


78  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

from  which  his  progress  results,  these  conditions  have 
not  any  sanction  from  his  reason.  They  have  had  no 
such  sanction  at  any  stage  of  his  history,  and  they  con- 
tinue to  be  as  much  without  such  sanction  in  the  highest 
civilisations  of  the  present  day  as  at  any  past  period. 

There  emerges  now  clearly  into  sight  a  fundamental 
principle  that  underlies  that  social  development  which 
has  been  in  progress  throughout  history,  and  which  is 
proceeding  with  accelerated  pace  in  our  modern  civilisa- 
tion. It  is  that  in  this  development  the  interests  of  the 
individual  and  those  of  the  social  organism  to  which  he 
belongs  are  not  identical.  The  teaching  of  reason  to 
the  individual  must  always  be  that  the  present  time 
and  his  own  interests  therein  are  all-important  to  him. 
Yet  the  forces  which  are  working  out  our  development 
are  primarily  concerned  not  with  these  interests  of  the 
individual,  but  with  those  widely  different  interests  of  a 
social  organism  subject  to  quite  other  conditions  and 
possessed  of  an  indefinitely  longer  life.  These  latter 
interests  are  at  any  time  not  only  greater  than  those  of 
any  class  of  individuals  :  they  are  greater  than  those  of 
all  the  individuals  of  any  single  generation.  Nay  more, 
as  we  shall  see,  they  are  at  times  greater  than  those  of 
all  the  individuals  of  a  whole  series  of  generations. 
And  in  the  development  which  is  in  progress  it  is  a  first 
principle  of  evolutionary  science  that  it  is  these  greater 
interests  that  must  be  always  paramount.  The  central 
fact  with  which  we  are  confronted  in  our  progressive 
societies  is,  therefore,  that  the  interests  of  the  social 
organism  and  those  of  the  individuals  comprising  it  at 
any  time  are  actually  antagonistic ;  they  can  never  be 
reconciled ;  they  are  inherently  and  essentially  irrecon- 
cilable. 

The  far-reaching  consequences  which  flow  from  the 


in  NO  RATIONAL  SANCTION  FOR  PROGRESS  79 

recognition  of  this  single  fact,  brought  out  when  we 
come  to  apply  the  teaching  of  evolutionary  science  to 
society,  will  become  evident  as  we  proceed.  Its  revolu- 
tionary significance  is,  however,  immediately  apparent. 
If  the  interests  of  a  progressive  society  as  a  whole,  and 
those  of  the  individuals  at  any  time  comprising  it,  are 
innately  irreconcilable,  it  is  evident  that  there  can  never 
be,  for  the  individuals  in  those  societies,  any  universal 
rational  sanction  for  the  conditions  of  existence  neces- 
sarily prevailing.  We  look  at  the  entire  question  of  social 
development  from  a  new  standpoint.  We  stand,  as  it 
were,  at  the  centre  of  the  great  maelstrom  of  human 
history,  and  see  why  all  those  systems  of  moral  philo- 
sophy, which  have  sought  to  find  in  the  nature  of  things 
a  rational  sanction  for  human  conduct  in  society,  must 
sweep  round  and  round  in  futile  circles.  They  attempt 
an  inherently  impossible  task.  The  first  great  social 
lesson  of  those  evolutionary  doctrines  which  have  trans- 
formed the  science  of  the  nineteenth  century  is,  that 
there  cannot  be  such  a  sanction. 

From  the  first  awakening  of  the  Greek  mind  with 
Thales,  onward  through  the  speculations  of  Socrates, 
Plato,  and  Zeno ;  underneath  the  systems  of  Seneca 
and  Marcus  Aurelius,  and  of  Spinoza,  Kant,  Fichte, 
Hegel,  and  Comte ;  in  the  utilitarianism  of  Hobbes, 
Locke,  Hume,  Bentham,  the  Mills,  and  Herbert  Spencer, 
the  one  consistent  practical  aim  which  connects  together 
all  the  widely  .different  efforts  and  methods  of  philo- 
sophy has  been  to  discover  in  the  nature  of  things  a 
rational  sanction  for  individual  conduct.  George  Henry 
Lewes  notes  the  continued  failure  of  philosophy  to 
solve  the  capital  problems  of  human  existence,  only, 
however,  to  attribute  the  result  to  the  absence  of  the 
positive  method  associated  with  the  name  of  Auguste 


8o  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

Comte.  But  it  would  appear  that  all  methods  and 
systems  alike,  which  have  endeavoured  to  find  in  the 
nature  of  things  any  universal  rational  sanction  for 
individual  conduct  in  a  progressive  society,  must  be 
ultimately  fruitless.  They  are  all  alike,  inherently  un- 
scientific in  that  they  attempt  to  do  what  the  funda- 
mental conditions  of  existence  render  impossible.  The 
positive  system,  no  less  than  the  others,  and  only  all 
the  more  surely  because  it  is  positive,  must  apparently 
also  be  a  failure. 

The  transforming  fact  which  the  scientific  develop- 
ment of  the  nineteenth  century  has  confronted  us  with 
is,  that,  as  the  interests  of  the  social  organism  and  of  the 
individual  are,  and  must  remain,  antagonistic,  and  the 
former  must  always  be  predominant,  there  can  never  be 
found  any  sanction  in  individual  reason  for  conduct  in 
societies  where  the  conditions  of  progress  prevail.  One 
of  the  first  results  of  the  application  of  the  methods  and 
conclusions  of  the  biological  science  of  our  time  to  social 
phenomena  must  apparently  be  to  bring  to  a  close  that 
long-drawn-out  stage  of  thought  in  which  for  2300 
years  the  human  mind  has  engaged  in  a  task,  the 
accomplishment  of  which  fundamental  organic  conditions 
of  life  render  inherently  impossible.1 

1  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer's  conception  of  a  rtate  of  society  in  which  the 
interests  of  the  individual  and  those  of  society  are  reconciled  (Data 
of  Ethics),  is  discussed  in  chapter  x.  It  must  ever  remain  an  incalcul- 
able loss  to  English  science  and  English  philosophy,  that  the  author  of 
the  Synthetic  Philosophy  did  not  undertake  his  great  task  later  in  the 
nineteenth  century.  As  time  goes  on,  it  will  become  clearer  what  the 
nature  of  that  loss  has  been.  It  will  be  perceived  that  the  conception  of 
his  work  was  practically  complete  before  his  intellect  had  any  opportunity 
of  realising  the  full  transforming  effect  in  the  higher  regions  of  thought, 
and,  more  particularly,  in  the  department  of  sociology,  of  that  development 
of  biological  science  which  began  with  Darwin,  which  is  still  in  full 
progress,  and  to  which  Professor  Weismann  has  recently  made  the  most 
notable  contributions. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  CENTRAL  FEATURE  OP  HUMAN  HISTORY 

THE  outlines  of  the  great  fundamental  problem  which 
underlies  our  social  development  are  now  clearly  visible. 
We  have  a  rational  creature  whose  reason  is  itself  one 
of  the  leading  factors  in  the  progress  he  is  making ;  but 
who  is  nevertheless  subject,  in  common  with  all  other 
forms  of  life,  to  certain  organic  laws  of  existence  which 
render  his  progress  impossible  in  any  other  way  than 
by  submitting  to  conditions  that  can  never  have  any 
ultimate  sanction  in  his  reason.  He  is  undergoing  a 
social  development  in  which  his  individual  interests 
are  not  only  subservient  to  the  interests  of  the  general 
progress  of  the  race,  but  in  which  they  are  being 
increasingly  subordinated  to  the  welfare  of  a  social 
organism  possessing  widely  different  interests,  and  an 
indefinitely  longer  life. 

It  is  evident  that  we  have  here  all  the  elements  of  a 
problem  of  capital  importance — a  problem  quite  special 
and  entirely  different  from  any  that  the  history  of  life 
has  ever  before  presented.  On  the  one  side  we  have 
the  self-assertive  reason  of  the  individual  necessarily 
tending  to  be  ever  more  and  more  developed  by  the 
evolutionary  forces  at  work.  On  the  other,  we  have 
the  immensely  wider  interests  of  the  social  organism, 

G 


82  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

and  behind  it  those  of  the  race  in  general,  demanding, 
nevertheless,  the  most  absolute  subordination  of  this 
ever -increasing  rational  self-assertiveness  in  the  indi- 
vidual. We  find,  in  fact,  if  progress  is  to  continue,  that 
the  individual  must  be  compelled  to  submit  to  conditions 
of  existence  of  the  most  onerous  kind  which,  to  all 
appearance,  his  reason  actually  gives  him  the  power  to 
suspend — and  all  to  further  a  development  in  which  he 
has  not,  and  in  which  he  never  can  have,  qua  individual, 
the  slightest  practical  interest.  We  have,  it  would 
appear,  henceforth  to  witness  the  extraordinary  spectacle 
of  man,  moved  by  a  profound  social  instinct,  continu- 
ally endeavouring  in  the  interests  of  his  social  progress 
to  check  and  control  the  tendency  of  his  own  reason  to 
suspend  and  reverse  the  conditions  which  are  producing 
this  progress. 

In  the  conflict  which  results,  we  have  the  seat  of  a 
vast  series  of  phenomena  constituting  the  absolutely 
characteristic  feature  of  our  social  evolution.  It  is 
impossible  to  fully  understand  the  spectacle  presented 
by  human  history  in  the  past  on  the  one  hand,  or  the 
main  features  of  the  social  phenomena,  now  presenting 
themselves  throughout  our  Western  civilisation  on  the 
other,  without  getting  to  the  heart  of  this  conflict.  It 
is  the  pivot  upon  which  the  whole  drama  of  human 
history  and  human  development  turns. 

If  we  could  conceive  a  visitor  from  another  planet 
coming  amongst  us,  and  being  set  down  in  the  midst  of 
our  Western  civilisation  at  the  present  day,  there  is  one 
feature  of  our  life  which,  we  might  imagine,  could  not 
fail  to  excite  his  interest  and  curiosity.  If  we  could 
suppose  him  taken  round  London,  Paris,  Berlin,  or  New 
York,  or  any  other  great  centre  of  population,  by  some 
man  of  light  and  leading  amongst  us,  we  might  easily 


iv       THE  CENTRAL  FEATURE  OF  HUMAN  HISTORY      83 

imagine  the  anxiety  of  his  conductor  to  worthily  explain 
to  him  the  nature  and  the  meaning  of  those  aspects  of 
our  society  which  there  presented  themselves.  After  all 
the  outward  features,  the  streets,  the  crowds,  the 
buildings,  and  the  means  of  traffic  and  communication 
had  received  attention,  we  might  expect  our  man  of 
science  to  explain  to  his  visitor  something  of  the  nature 
of  the  wonderful  social  organisation  of  which  the  outward 
features  presented  themselves.  Our  trades  and  manufac- 
tures, our  commerce,  our  methods  of  government,  the 
forces  at  work  amongst  us,  and  the  problems,  social  and 
political,  which  occupy  our  minds,  would  doubtless  all 
receive  notice.  Something,  too,  of  our  history  would 
be  related,  and  our  relations,  past  and  present,  to 
other  nations,  and  even  to  other  sections  of  the  human 
race,  would  probably  be  explained. 

But  when  our  visitor  had  lived  amongst  us  for  a  little 
time,  he  would  probably  find  that  there  was  one  most 
obvious  feature  of  our  life  about  which  he  had  been  told 
nothing,  yet  respecting  which  he  would,  as  an  intelligent 
observer,  sooner  or  later  ask  for  information.  He  would 
have  noticed  at  every  turn  in  our  cities  great  buildings- 
churches,  temples,  and  cathedrals — and  he  would  have 
seen  also  that  wherever  men  lived  together  in  small 
groups  they  erected  these  buildings.  He  would  have 
noticed  the  crowds  which  periodically  frequented  them  ; 
and  if  he  had  listened  to  the  doctrines  taught  therein  he 
could  not  fail  to  be  deeply  interested.  As  his  knowledge 
of  us  grew  he  would  learn  that  these  institutions  were 
not  peculiar  to  any  particular  place,  or  even  to  the 
people  amongst  whom  he  found  himself ;  that  they  were 
also  a  distinguishing  feature  of  other  cities  and  other 
countries  ;  that  they  existed  throughout  the  greater  part 
of  the  civilised  world,  and  that  similar  institutions  had 


84  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

been  a  characteristic  feature  of  human  life  as  far  back 
as  history  extends. 

If,  at  this  stage,  he  had  ventured  to  ask  his  guide 
for  some  explanation  of  these  phenomena,  he  would 
not  improbably  begin  to  feel  somewhat  puzzled.  For 
if  his  guide  had  spoken  as  the  spokesmen  of  science 
sometimes  do  speak  nowadays,  the  information  given 
would  probably  not  have  been  altogether  satisfying. 
The  visitor  would  possibly  have  learned  from  him  that 
the  religious  beliefs,  which  maintained  these  institutions, 
were  by  some  held  to  represent  the  survival  of  an  instinct 
peculiar  to  the  childhood  of  the  race ;  that  they  were  by 
others  supposed  to  have  had  their  origin  in  ancestor- 
worship  and  a  belief  in  ghosts.  He  might  even  have  ex- 
pressed his  own  opinion  that  they  belonged  to  a  past  age, 
and  that  they  were  generally  discredited  by  the  intellectual 
class.  Pressed  for  any  further  information  he  might 
have  added  that  science  did  not  really  pay  much  atten- 
tion to  the  phenomena;  that  she,  in  general,  regarded 
them  with  some  degree  of  contempt  and  even  of  bitter- 
ness, for,  that,  during  many  centuries  these  religions  had 
maintained  a  vast  conspiracy  against  her,  had  persecuted 
her  champions,  and  had  used  stupendous  and  extra- 
ordinary efforts  to  stifle  and  strangle  her.  The  guide,  if 
he  were  a  man  of  discrimination,  might  even  have  added 
that  the  feud  was  still  continued  under  all  the  outward 
appearances  of  truce  and  friendliness  ;  that  it  was,  in 
reality,  only  by  her  victories  in  applying  her  discoveries 
to  the  practical  benefit  of  the  race  that  science  had 
finally  been  able  to  secure  her  position  against  her 
adversary ;  and  that  in  its  heart  one  of  the  parties  still 
continued  to  regard  the  other  as  a  mortal  enemy  which 
only  the  altered  circumstances  prevented  it  from  openly 
assailing. 


iv      THE  CENTRAL  FEATURE  OF  HUMAN  HISTORY      85 

Such  a  visitor  could  not  fail  to  find  his  interest  con- 
tinue to  grow  as  he  listened  to  such  details.  But  if  he 
had  pressed  for  further  information  as  to  the  nature  of 
this  conflict,  and  had  sought  to  learn  what  law  or  meaning 
underlay  this  extraordinary  instinct  which  had  thus 
driven  successive  generations  of  men  to  carry  on  such 
a  prolonged  and  desperate  struggle  against  forces  set 
in  motion  by  their  own  intellect,  it  is  not  improbable 
that  his  guide  would  at  this  point  have  shrugged  his 
shoulders  and  changed  the  subject. 

This  is  probably  all  the  visitor  would  learn  in 
this  manner.  Yet,  as  his  perplexity  increased,  so  also 
might  his  interest  be  expected  to  grow.  As  he  learnt 
more  of  our  history  he  would  not  fail  to  observe  the 
important  part  these  religions  had  played  therein. 
Nay,  as  he  came  to  understand  it  and  to  view  it,  as 
he  would  be  able  to  do,  without  prepossession,  he 
would  see  that  it  consisted  to  a  large  extent  of  the 
history  of  the  religious  systems  he  saw  around  him.  As 
he  extended  his  view  to  the  history  of  other  nations,  and 
to  that  of  our  civilisation  in  general,  he  would  be  met 
with  features  equally  striking.  He  would  observe  that 
these  systems  had  exercised  the  same  influence  there, 
and  that  the  history  of  our  Western  civilisation  was 
largely  but  the  life -history  of  a  particular  form  of 
religion  and  of  wide -extending  and  deep-seated  social 
movements  connected  therewith.  He  would  see  that 
these  movements  had  deeply  affected  entire  nations,  and 
that  revolutions  to  which  they  gave  rise  had  influenced 
national  development  and  even  to  a  considerable  extent 
directed  its  course  amongst  nearly  all  the  peoples  taking 
a  leading  part  in  the  world  around  him. 

As  he  inquired  deeper  he  could  not  fail  to  be  struck 
by  the  extraordinary  depth  and  dimensions  of  the 


86  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

conflict  to  which  his  guide  had  incidentally  referred, 
namely,  that  waged  between  these  religions  and 
the  forces  set  in  motion  by  human  reason ;  and 
he  would  see  also,  that  not  only  had  it  extended 
through  a  great  part  of  the  history  of  Western  civilisa- 
tion, but  that  it  was  quite  true  that  it  was  still  in 
progress.  Eegarding  this  conflict  impartially,  he  could 
not  fail  also  to  be  impressed  profoundly  by  the  per- 
sistence of  the  instinct  which  inspired  it,  and  he  would 
doubtless  conclude  that  it  must  have  some  significance 
in  the  evolution  which  we  were  undergoing. 

His  bewilderment  would  probably  increase  as  he 
looked  beneath  the  surface  of  society.  He  would  see 
that  he  was  in  reality  living  in  the  midst  of  a  civilisation 
where  the  habits,  customs,  laws,  and  institutions  of  the 
people  had  been  influenced  in  almost  every  detail  by 
these  religions  ;  that,  although  a  large  proportion  of  the 
population  were  quite  unconscious  of  it,  their  conceptions 
of  their  rights  and  duties,  and  of  their  relationship  to 
each  other,  their  ideas  of  liberty,  and  even  of  govern- 
ment and  of  the  fundamental  principles  of  society,  had 
been  largely  shaped  by  doctrines  taught  in  connection 
with  them.  Nay,  more,  he  would  see  that  those 
who  professed  to  entirely  repudiate  the  teachings  of 
these  religions,  were  almost  as  directly  affected  as  other 
sections  of  the  community,  and  that  whatever  their 
private  opinions  might  be,  they  were  quite  powerless 
to  escape  the  influences  of  the  prevailing  tone  and 
the  developmental  tendencies  of  the  society  in  which 
they  lived. 

But  the  feature  which  would  perhaps  interest 
him  most  of  all  would  probably  attract  attention 
later.  He  would  observe  that  these  forms  of  religious 
belief  which  his  guide  had  spoken  of  as  survivals,  had 


iv       THE  CENTRAL  FEATURE  OF  HUMAN  HISTORY      87 

nevertheless  the  support  of  a  large  proportion  of 
perfectly  sincere  and  earnest  persons ;  and  that  great 
movements  in  connection  with  the  prevailing  forms  of 
belief  were  still  in  progress  ;  and  that  these  movements, 
when  they  were  studied,  proved  to  have  the  characteristic 
features  which  had  distinguished  all  similar  movements 
in  the  past.  He  would  find  that  they  were  not  only 
independent  of,  but  in  direct  conflict  with  the  intel- 
lectual forces ;  that  although  they  not  infrequently 
originated  with  obscure  and  uncultured  persons,  they 
spread  with  marvellous  rapidity,  profoundly  influencing 
immense  bodies  of  men  and  producing  effects  quite 
beyond  the  control  of  the  intellectual  forces  of  the 
time. 

Such  a  visitor,  at  length,  would  not  fail  to  be  deeply 
impressed  by  what  he  had  observed.  He  would  be 
driven  to  conclude  that  he  was  dealing  with  phenomena, 
the  laws  and  nature  of  which  were  little  understood  by 
the  people  amongst  whom  he  found  himself ;  and  that 
whatever  might  be  the  meaning  of  these  phenomena 
they  undoubtedly  constituted  one  of  the  most  persistent 
and  characteristic  features  of  human  society,  and  not 
only  in  past  ages  but  at  the  present  day. 

If,  however,  our  visitor  at  last  endeavoured  to  obtain 
for  himself  by  a  systematic  study  of  the  literature  of 
the  subject  some  insight  into  the  nature  of  the  pheno- 
mena he  was  regarding,  the  state  of  things  which 
would  meet  his  view  would  excite  his  wonder  not  a 
little.  If  at  the  outset  he  endeavoured  to  discover 
what  all  these  various  forms  of  religion  admittedly 
had  in  common,  that  is  to  say,  the  distinguishing  char- 
acteristic they  all  possessed,  from  the  forms  of  belief 
prevalent  amongst  men  in  a  low  social  state  up  to  those 
highly-developed  religions  which  were  playing  so  large 


88  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

a  part  in  the  life  of  civilised  peoples,  he  would  be  met 
by  a  curious  fact.  He  would  find  everywhere  dis- 
cussions on  the  subject  of  religion.  Besides  an  immense 
theological  literature,  exclusively  devoted  to  the  matter, 
he  would  encounter  the  term  at  every  turn  in  the 
philosophical  and  social  writings  of  the  time.  He 
would  find  a  vast  number  of  treatises,  and  innumer- 
able shorter  works  and  articles  in  periodical  publica- 
tions, devoted  to  discussions  connected  with  the  subject 
and  to  almost  every  aspect  of  the  great  number  of 
questions  more  or  less  intimately  associated  with  it. 
But  for  one  thing  he  would  search  in  vain.  He  would 
probably  be  unable  anywhere  to  discover  any  satis- 
factory definition  of  this  term  "religion"  which  all 
the  writers  were  so  constantly  using,  or  any  general 
evidence  that  those  who  carried  on  the  discussions  had 
any  definite  view  as  to  the  function  in  our  social 
development  of  the  beliefs  they  disputed  about,  if, 
indeed,  they  considered  it  necessary  to  hold  that  they 
had  any  function  at  all. 

He  would  probably  find,  at  a,  very  early  stage,  that 
all  the  authorities  could  not  possibly  intend  the  word 
in  the  same  sense.  At  the  one  extreme  he  would  find 
that  there  was  a  certain  class  of  beliefs  calling  them- 
selves religions,  possessed  of  well-marked  characteristics, 
and  undoubtedly  influencing  in  a  particular  manner 
great  numbers  of  persons.  At  the  other  he  would  find 
a  class  of  persons  claiming  to  speak  in  the  name  of 
science,  repudiating  all  the  main  features  of  these, 
and  speaking  of  a  true  religion  which  would  survive 
all  that  they  held  to  be  false  in  them,  i.e.  all  that 
the  others  held  to  be  essential.  Between  these  two 
camps,  he  would  find  an  irregular  army  of  persons  who 
seemed  to  think  that  the  title  of  religion  might  be  properly 


iv       THE  CENTRAL  FEATURE  OF  HUMAN  HISTORY      89 

applied  to  any  form  of  belief  they  might  hold,  and 
might  choose  so  to  describe.  He  would  hear  of  the 
religion  of  Science,  of  the  religion  of  Philosophy,  of  the 
religion  of  Humanity,  of  the  religion  of  Eeason,  of 
the  religion  of  Socialism,  of  Natural  Religion,  and  of 
many  others.  In  the  absence  of  any  definite  general 
conception  as  to  what  the  function  of  a  religion  really 
was,  it  would  appear  to  be  held  possible  to  apply  this 
term  to  almost  any  form  of  belief  (or  unbelief),  with 
equal  propriety. 

If  he  attempted  at  last  to  draw  up  a  list  of  some  repre- 
sentative definitions  formulated  by  leading  authorities 
representing  various  views,  he  would  find  the  definitions 
themselves  puzzling  and  conflicting  to  an  extraordinary 
degree.  It  might  run  somewhat  as  follows : — 


CURRENT  DEFINITIONS  or  RELIGION. 

Seneca.— To  know  God  and  imitate  Him. 

Kant. — Keligion  consists  in  our  recognising  all  our  duties  as 
Divine  commands. 

Buskin. — Our  national  religion  is  the  performance  of  Church 
ceremonies,  and  preaching  of  soporific  truths  (or  untruths)  to  keep 
the  mob  quietly  at  work  while  we  amuse  ourselves. 

Matthew  Arnold. — Religion  is  morality  touched  by  emotion. 

Comte. — The  Worship  of  Humanity. 

Alexander  Bain. — The  religious  sentiment  is  constituted  by  the 
Tender  Emotion,  together  with  Fear,  and  the  Sentiment  of  the 
Sublime. 

Edward  Caird. — A  man's  religion  is  the  expression  of  his  ulti- 
mate attitude  to  the  Universe,  the  summed-up  meaning  and  pur- 
port of  his  whole  consciousness  of  things. 

Hegel. — The  knowledge  acquired  by  the  Finite  Spirit  of  its 
essence  as  an  Absolute  Spirit. 

Evadey. — Reverence  and  love  for  the  Ethical  ideal,  and  the 
desire  to  realise  that  ideal  in  life. 


90  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

Froude — A  sense  of  responsibility  to  the  Power  that  made 
us. 

Mill. — The  essence  of  Religion  is  the  strong  and  earnest  direc- 
tion of  the  emotions  and  desires  towards  an  ideal  object,  recognised 
as  of  the  highest  excellence,  and  as  rightly  paramount  over  all 
selfish  objects  of  desire. 

Gruppe. — A  belief  in  a  State  or  in  a  Being  which,  properly 
speaking,  lies  outside  the  sphere  of  human  striving  and  attainment, 
but  which  can  be  brought  into  this  sphere  in  a  particular  way, 
namely,  by  sacrifices,  ceremonies,  prayers,  penances,  and  self- 
denial. 

Carlyle. — The  thing  a  man  does  practically  believe ;  the  thing 
a  man  does  practically  lay  to  heart,  and  know  for  certain,  concern- 
ing his  vital  relations  to  this  mysterious  Universe  and  his  duty 
and  destiny  therein. 

The  Author  of  "Natural  Religion" — Religion  in  its  elementary 
state  is  what  may  be  described  as  habitual  and  permanent  admira- 
tion. 

Dr.  Martineau. — Religion  is  a  belief  in  an  everlasting  God ;  that 
is,  a  Divine  mind  and  will,  ruling  the  Universe,  and  holding  moral 
relations  with  mankind. 

The  perplexity  of  our  imaginary  visitor  at  finding 
such  a  list  grow  under  his  hand  (and  it  might  be 
almost  indefinitely  prolonged)  could  well  be  conceived. 
It  would  seem  almost  inevitable  that  he  must  sooner 
or  later  be  driven  to  conclude  that  he  was  dealing  with 
a  class  of  phenomena,  the  key  to  which  he  did  not 
possess. 

If  we  can  now  conceive  such  an  observer  able  to 
look  at  the  whole  matter  from  an  outside  and  quite 
independent  point  of  view,  there  is  a  feature  of  the 
subject  which  might  be  expected  ultimately  to  impress 
itself  upon  his  imagination.  The  one  idea  which  would 
slowly  take  possession  of  his  mind  would  be  that  under- 
neath all  this  vast  series  of  phenomena  with  which  he 
was  confronted,  he  beheld  man  in  some  way  in  conflict 


iv       THE  CENTRAL  FEATURE  OF  HUMAN  HISTORY      91 

with  his  own  reason.  The  evidence  as  to  this  conflict 
would  be  unmistakable,  and  all  the  phenomena  con- 
nected with  it  might  be  seen  to  group  themselves 
naturally  under  one  head.  It  would  be  perceived  that 
it  was  these  forms  of  religious  belief  which  had  supplied 
the  motive  power  in  an  extraordinary  struggle  which 
man  had  apparently  carried  on  throughout  his  whole 
career  against  forces  set  in  motion  by  his  own  mind — 
a  struggle,  grim,  desperate,  and  tragic,  which  would 
stand  out  as  one  of  the  most  pronounced  features  of 
his  history. 

From  the  point  at  which  science  first  encountered 
him  emerging  from  the  obscurity  of  prehistoric  times, 
down  into  the  midst  of  contemporary  affairs,  it  would 
be  seen  that  this  struggle  had  never  ceased.  It  had 
assumed,  and  was  still  assuming,  various  forms,  and 
different  symbols  at  different  times  represented,  more 
or  less  imperfectly,  the  opposing  forces.  Superstition 
and  Knowledge,  the  Ecclesiastical  and  the  Civil,  Church 
and  State,  Dogma  and  Doubt,  Faith  and  Reason,  the 
Sacred  and  the  Profane,  the  Spiritual  and  the  Temporal, 
Eeligion  and  Science,  Supernaturalism  and  Rationalism, 
these  are  some  of  the  terms  which  would  be  found  to 
have  expressed,  sometimes  fully,  sometimes  only  parti- 
ally, the  forces  in  opposition.  Not  only  would  the 
conflict  be  perceived  to  be  still  amongst  us,  but  its 
dominant  influence  would  be  distinguished  beneath  all 
the  complex  social  phenomena  of  the  time,  and  even 
behind  those  new  forces  unloosed  by  the  social  revolu- 
tion which  was  filling  the  period  in  which  the  current 
generation  were  living. 

One  of  the  most .  remarkable  features  which  the 
observer  could  not'  fail  to  notice  in  connection  with 
these  religions,  would  be,  that  under  their  influence  man 


92  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

would  seem  to  be  possessed  of  an  instinct,  the  like  of 
which  he  would  not  encounter  anywhere  else.  This 
instinct,  under  all  its  forms,  would  be  seen  to  have  one 
invariable  characteristic.  Moved  by  it,  man  would 
appear  to  be  always  possessed  by  the  desire  to  set  up 
sanctions  for  his  individual  conduct,  which  would  appear 
to  be  /Swper-natural  against  those  which  were  natural, 
sanctions  which  would  appear  to  be  i^ra-rationai  against 
those  which  were  simply  rational.  Everywhere  he 
would  find  him  clinging  with  the  most  extraordinary 
persistence  to  ideas  and  ideals  which  regulated  his  life 
under  the  influence  of  these  religions,  and  ruthlessly 
persecuting  all  those  who  endeavoured  to  convince 
him  that  these  conceptions  were  without  founda- 
tion in  fact.  At  many  periods  in  human  history 
also,  he  would  have  to  observe  that  the  opinion  had 
been  entertained  by  considerable  numbers  of  persons, 
that  a  point  had  at  length  been  reached,  at  which  it 
was  only  a  question  of  time,  until  human  reason 
finally  dispelled  the  belief  in  those  unseen  powers 
which  man  held  in  control  over  himself.  But  he  would 
find  this  anticipation  never  realised.  Dislodged  from 
one  position,  the  human  mind,  he  would  observe,  had 
only  taken  up  another  of  the  same  kind  which  it  con- 
tinued once  more  to  hold  with  the  same  unreasoning, 
dogged,  and  desperate  persistence. 

Strangest  sight  of  all,  the  observer,  while  he  would 
find  man  in  every  other  department  of  life  continually 
extolling  his  reason,  regarding  it  as  his  highest  posses- 
sion, and  triumphantly  revelling  in  the  sense  of 
power  with  which  it  equipped  him,  would  here  see 
him  counting  as  his  bitterest  enemies  worthy  of  the 
severest  punishment,  and  the  most  persistent  per- 
secution, all  who  suggested  to  him  that  he  should, 


iv       THE  CENTRAL  FEATURE  OF  HUMAN  HISTORY      93 

in  these  matters,  walk  according  to  its  light.  He 
would  find  that  the  whole  department  of  speculative 
and  philosophical  thought  which  represented  the  highest 
intellectual  work  of  the  race  for  an  immense  period, 
furnished  an  extraordinary  spectacle.  It  would  present 
the  appearance  of  a  territory,  along  whose  frontiers  had 
been  waged,  without  intermission,  a  war,  deadly  and 
desolating  as  any  the  imagination  could  conceive.  Even 
the  imperfect  descriptions  of  this  conflict  from  time  to 
time  by  some  of  the  minds  which  had  taken  part  on  one 
side  in  it  would  be  very  striking.  "  I  know  of  no  study," 
says  Professor  Huxley,  "which  is  so  unutterably  sadden- 
ing as  that  of  the  evolution  of  humanity  as  it  is  set  forth 
in  the  annals  of  history.  Out  of  the  darkness  of  pre- 
historic ages,  man  emerges  with  the  marks  of  his  lowly 
origin  strong  upon  him.  He  is  a  brute,  only  more  in- 
telligent than  other  brutes ;  a  blind  prey  to  impulses, 
which  as  often  as  not  lead  him  to  destruction ;  a  victim  to 
endless  illusions  which  make  his  mental  existence  a  terror 
and  a  burthen,  and  fill  his  physical  life  with  barren  toil 
and  battle.  He  attains  a  certain  degree  of  comfort,  and 
develops  a  more  or  less  workable  theory  of  life  in  such 
favourable  situations  as  the  plains  of  Mesopotamia,  or 
of  Egypt,  and  then  for  thousands  and  thousands  of 
years,  struggles  with  varying  fortunes,  attended  by 
infinite  wickedness,  bloodshed,  and  misery,  to  maintain 
himself  at  this  point  against  the  greed  and  the  ambition 
of  his  fellow-men.  He  makes  a  point  of  killing  and 
otherwise  persecuting  all  those  who  first  try  to  get  him 
to  move  on ;  and  when  he  has  moved  a  step  farther, 
foolishly  confers  post-mortem  deification  on  his  victims. 
He  exactly  repeats  the  process  with  all  who  want  to 
move  a  step  yet  farther."1  This  territory  of  the  in- 

1  "Agnosticism,"  Nineteenth  Century,  February  1889. 


94  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

tellect  would,  in  fact,  present  all  the  appearances  of  a 
battle-field,  stained  with  the  blood  of  many  victims, 
singed  with  the  flames  of  martyrdom,  and  eloquent  of 
every  form  of  terror  and  punishment  that  human 
ingenuity  had  been  able  to  devise. 

And  he  would  notice,  as  many  of  those  who  fought 
in  the  ranks  did  not,  the  note  of  failure  which  resounded 
through  all  that  region  of  higher  human  thought  which 
we  call  philosophy,  the  profound  air  of  more  or  less 
unconscious  melancholy  which  sat  upon  many  of  the 
more  far-seeing  champions  on  the  side  of  human 
reason,  and  the — at  times  scarcely  concealed — sense  of 
hopelessness  of  any  decisive  triumph  for  their  cause 
displayed  by  some  of  these  champions,  even  while  their 
followers  of  less  insight  were  ever  and  anon  hailing  all 
the  signs  of  final  victory. 

There  is  not,  it  is  believed,  anything  which  is  unreal 
or  exaggerated  in  this  view  of  one  of  the  chief  phases 
of  human  evolution.  The  aim  has  been  to  look  at  the 
facts  just  as  they  might  be  expected  to  present  them- 
selves to  an  observer  who  could  thus  regard  them  from 
the  outside,  and  with  a  mind  quite  free  from  all  pre- 
possession. He  would  be  able  to  perceive  the  real 
proportions  of  this  stupendous  conflict;  he  would  be 
able  to  see  that  both  sides  regarded  it  from  merely  a 
partisan  standpoint,  neither  of  them  possessing  any  true 
perception  of  its  nature  or  dimensions,  or  of  its  relation- 
ship to  the  development  the  race  is  undergoing.  If 
it  is  profitless  for  science  to  approach  the  examination 
of  religious  phenomena  from  the  direction  in  which  it  is 
usually  approached  by  a  large  class  of  religious  writers,  it 
is  also  apparently  none  the  less  idle  and  foolish  to  attempt 
to  dismiss  the  whole  subject  as  if  it  merely  furnished  an 
exhibition  of  some  perverse  and  meaningless  folly  and 


iv       THE  CENTRAL  FEATURE  OF  HUMAN  HISTORY      95 

fury  in  man.  Many  of  the  ideas  concerning  the  origin  of 
religions,  insists  De  la  Saussaye  truly,  need  only  to  be 
mentioned  to  have  their  insufficiency  realised.  "  Such 
is,  for  instance,  that  formerly  popular  explanation  which 
regarded  religion  as  a  human  discovery  sprung  from 
the  cunning  deception  of  priests  and  rulers.  Another 
opinion  not  less  insipid,  though  at  present  sometimes  re- 
garded as  the  highest  philosophy,  is  that  which  declares 
religion  to  be  a  madness,  a  pathological  phenomenon 
closely  allied  with  neurosis  and  hysteria."1  The  phe- 
nomena in  question  are  on  such  a  gigantic  scale,  and 
the  instinct  which  finds  an  expression  therein  is  so 
general,  so  persistent,  and  so  deep-seated,  that  they 
cannot  be  lightly  passed  over  in  this  way.  In 
the  eyes  of  the  evolutionist  they  must  have  some 
meaning,  they  must  be  associated  with  some  wide- 
reaching  law  of  our  social  development  as  yet  unenun- 
ciated. 

The  one  fact  which  stands  out  clear  above  it  all  is 
that  the  forces  against  which  man  is  engaged  through- 
out the  whole  course  of  the  resulting  struggle  are  none 
other  than  those  enlisted  against  him  by  his  reason. 
As  in  Calderon's  tragic  story  the  unknown  figure  which, 
throughout  life,  is  everywhere  in  conflict  with  the 
individual  whom  it  haunts,  lifts  the  mask  at  last 
to  disclose  to  the  opponent  his  own  features,  so  here 
underneath  these  religious  phenomena  we  see  man 
throughout  his  career  engaged  in  a  remorseless  and 
relentless  struggle  in  which  the  opponent  proves  to  be 
none  other  than  his  own  reason.  Throughout  all  the 
centuries  in  which  his'tory  has  him  in  view  we  witness 
him  driven  by  a  profound  instinct  which  finds  expression 

1  Manual  of  the  Science  of  Religion,  by  P.  D.  C.  De  La  Saussaye, 
translated  from  the  German,  by  B.  S.  Colyer-Fergusson,  1891. 


96  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP,  iv 

in  his  religions  unmistakably  recognising  a  hostile  force 
of  some  kind  in  his  own  reason. l 

This  is  the  spectacle  which  demands  our  attention. 
This  is  the  conflict  the  significance  of  which  in  human 
evolution  it  is  necessary  to  bring  out  into  the  fullest 
and  clearest  light.  It  is  a  conflict,  the  meaning  of 
which  has  been  buried  for  over  two  thousand  years 
under  the  fierce  controversy  (not  less  partisan  and  un- 
scientific on  the  one  side  than  on  the  other)  which  has 
been  waged  over  it.  Goethe  was  not  speaking  with  a 
poet's  exaggeration,  but  with  a  scientific  insight  in 
advance  of  his  time  when  he  asserted  of  it,  that  it  is 
"  the  deepest,  nay,  the  one  theme  of  the  world's  history 
to  which  all  others  are  subordinate."  * 

1  It  is  a  remarkable  and  interesting  fact  that  the  two  sides  in  this 
conflict,  even  under  all  the  forms  and  freedom  of  modern  life  where  the 
fullest  scope  is  allowed  for  every  kind  of  inquiry,  still  seem  to  recognise 
each  other  intuitively  as  opponents.     Mr.  Galton,  as  the  result  of  his 
inquiries  into  the  personal  and  family  history  of  scientific  men  in  Eng- 
land, says  that  it  is  a  fact  that,  in  proportion  to  the  pains  bestowed  on 
their  education,  sons  of  clergymen  rarely  take  the  lead  in  science.     The 
pursuit  of  science  he  considers  must  be  uncongenial  to  the  priestly  char- 
acter.    He  says  that  in  his  own  experience  of  the  councils  of  scientific 
societies  it  is  very  rare  to  find  clergymen  thereon.     Out  of  660  separate 
appointments  clergymen  held  only  sixteen,  or  one  in  forty,  and  these 
were  in  nearly  every  case  attached  to  subdivisions  of  science  with  fewest 
salient  points  to  jar  against  dogma. — English  Men  of  Science,  their  Nature 
and  Nurture,  by  F.  Galton. 

2  Vide  The  Social  Philosophy  and  Religion  of  Comb,  by  £.  Caird, 
LL.D.,  p.  160. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  FUNCTION  OP  RELIGIOUS  BELIEFS  IN  THE  EVOLUTION 

OF  SOCIETY 

SINCE  science  first  seriously  directed  her  attention  to 
the  study  of  social  phenomena,  the  interest  of  workers 
has  been  arrested  by  the  striking  resemblances  between 
the  life  of  society  and  that  of  organic  growths  in 
general.  We  have,  accordingly,  had  many  elaborate 
parallels  drawn  by  various  scientific  writers  between  the 
two,  and  "  the  social  organism  "  has  become  a  familiar 
expression  in  a  certain  class  of  literature.  It  must  be 
confessed,  however,  that  these  comparisons  have  been, 
so  far,  neither  as  fruitful  nor  as  suggestive  as  might 
naturally  have  been  expected.  The  generalisations  and 
abstractions  to  which  they  have  led,  even  in  the  hands 
of  so  original  a  thinker  as  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer,  are 
often,  it  must  be  acknowledged,  forced  and  unsatisfac- 
tory ;  and  it  may  be  fairly  said  that  a  field  of  inquiry 
which  looked  at  the  outset  in  the  highest  degree 
promising  has,  on  the  whole,  proved  disappointing. 

Yet  that  there  is  some  analogy  between  the  social 
life  and  organic  life  in  general,  history  and  experience 
most  undoubtedly  suggest.  The  pages  of  the  historian 
seem  to  be  filled  with  pictures  of  organic  life,  over  the 
moving  details  of  which  the  biologist  instinctively 

H 


98  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

liiigers.  We  see  social  systems  born  in  silence  and 
obscurity.  They  develop  beneath  our  eyes.  They 
make  progress  until  they  exhibit  a  certain  maximum 
vitality.  They  gradually  decline,  and  finally  dis- 
appear, having  presented  in  the  various  stages  certain 
well-marked  phases  which  invariably  accompany  the 
development  and  dissolution  of  organic  life  wheresoever 
encountered.  It  may  be  observed  too  that  this  idea  of 
the  life,  growth,  and  decline  of  peoples  is  deeply  rooted. 
It  is  always  present  in  the  mind  of  the  historian.  It 
is  to  be  met  with  continually  in  general  literature. 
The  popular  imagination  is  affected  by  it.  It  finds 
constant  expression  in  the  utterances  of  public  speakers 
and  of  writers  in  the  daily  press,  who,  ever  and 
anon,  remind  us  that  our  national  life,  or,  it  may  be,  the 
life  of  our  civilisation,  must  reach,  if  it  has  not  already 
reached,  its  stage  of  maximum  development,  and  that  it 
must  decline  like  others  which  have  preceded  it.  That 
social  systems  are  endowed  with  a  definite  principle  of 
life  seems  to  be  taken  for  granted.  Yet :  What  is  this 
principle  ?  Where  has  it  its  seat  ?  What  are  the  laws ' 
which  control  the  development  and  decline  of  those 
so-called  organic  growths  ?  Nay,  more :  What  is  the 
social  organism  itself?  Is  it  the  political  organisation 
of  which  we  form  part  ?  Or  is  it  the  race  to  which  we 
belong  ?  Is  it  our  civilisation  in  general  ?  Or,  is  it,  as 
some  writers  would  seem  to  imply,  the  whole  human 
family  in  process  of  evolution  ?  It  must  be  confessed 
that  the  literature  of  our  time  furnishes  no  satisfactory 
answers  to  a  large  class  of  questions  of  this  kind. 

It  is  evident  that  if  we  are  ever  to  lay  broadly  and 
firmly  the  foundations  of  a  science  of  human  society, 
that  there  is  one  point  above  others  at  which  attention 
must  be  concentrated.  The  distinguishing  feature  of 


v  THE  FUNCTION  OF  RELIGIOUS  BELIEFS  99 

human  history  is  the  social  development  the  race 
is  undergoing.  But  the  characteristic  and  exceptional 
feature  of  this  development  is  the  relationship  of 
the  individual  to  society.  We  have  seen  in  the  pre- 
ceding chapters  that  fundamental  organic  conditions 
of  life  render  the  progress  of  the  race  possible  only 
under  conditions  which  have  never  had,  and  which 
have  not  now,  any  sanction  from  the  reason  of  a  great 
proportion  of  the  individuals  who  submit  to  them. 
The  interests  of  the  individual  and  those  of  the  social 
organism,  in  the  evolution  which  is  proceeding,  are  not 
either  identical  or  capable  of  being  reconciled,  as  has 
been  necessarily  assumed  in  all  those  systems  of  ethics 
which  have  sought  to  establish  a  rational  sanction  for 
individual  conduct.  The  two  are  fundamentally  and 
inherently  irreconcilable,  and  a  large  proportion  of  the 
existing  individuals  at  any  time  have,  as  we  saw,  no 
personal  interest  whatever  in  this  progress  of  the  race, 
or  in  the  social  development  we  are  undergoing. 
Strange  to  say,  however,  man's  reason,  which  has 
apparently  given  him  power  to  suspend  the  onerous 
conditions  to  which  he  is  subject,  has  never  produced 
their  suspension.  His  development  has  continued  with 
unabated  pace  throughout  history,  and  it  is  in  fall 
progress  under  our  eyes. 

The  pregnant  question  with  which  we  found  our- 
selves confronted  was,  therefore  :  What  has  then  be- 
come of  human  reason?  It  would  appear  that  the 
answer  has,  in  effect,  been  given.  The  central  feature 
of  human  history,  the  meaning  of  which  neither 
science  nor  philosophy  has  hitherto  fully  recognised, 
is,  apparently,  the  struggle  which  man,  throughout  the 
whole  period  of  his  social  development,  has  carried 
on  to  effect  the  subordination  of  his  own  reason. 


ioo  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

The  motive  power  in  this  struggle  has  undoubtedly 
been  supplied  by  his  religious  beliefs.  The  conclusion 
towards  which  we  seem  to  be  carried  is,  therefore,  that 
the  function  of  these  beliefs  in  human  evolution  must 
be  to  provide  a  super-rational  sanction  for  that  large 
class  of  conduct  in  the  individual,  necessary  to  the  main- 
tenance of  the  development  which  is  proceeding,  but 
for  which  there  can  never  be,  in  the  nature  of  things, 
any  rational  sanction. 

The  fact  has  been  already  noticed  that  evolutionary 
science  is  likely  in  our  day  to  justify,  as  against  the 
teaching  of  past  schools  of  thought,  one  of  the  deepest 
and  most  characteristic  of  social  instincts,  viz.,  that 
which  has  consistently  held  the  theories  of  that  large 
group  of  philosophical  writers  who  have  aimed  at  estab- 
lishing a  rational  sanction  for  individual  conduct  in 
society — a  school  which  may  be  said  to  have  culmin- 
ated in  England  in  "  utilitarianism  " — as  being  on  the 
whole  (to  quote  the  words  of  Mr.  Lecky)  "profoundly 
immoral."1  It  would  appear  that  science  must  in  the 
end  also  justify  another  instinct  equally  general,  and 
also  in  direct  opposition  to  a  widely  prevalent  intel- 
lectual conception  which  is  characteristic  of  our  time. 

From  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
and  more  particularly  since  Comte  published  his  Philo- 
sophic Positive,  an  increasingly  large  number  of  minds 
in  France,  Germany,  and  England  (not  necessarily,  or 
even  chiefly,  those  adhering  to  Comte's  general  views) 
have  questioned  the  essentiality  of  the  supernatural 
element  in  religious  beliefs.  In  England  a  large  litera- 
ture has  gradually  arisen  on  the  subject ;  and  the  vogue 
of  books  like  Natural  Religion,  attributed  to  Professor 
J.  E.  Seeley,  and  others  in  which  the  subject  has  been 

1  History  of  European  Morals,  vol.  i  pp.  2,  3. 


v  THE  FUNCTION  OF  RELIGIOUS  BELIEFS  101 

approached  from  different  standpoints,  has  testified  to 
the  interest  which  this  view  has  excited.  A  large  and 
growing  intellectual  party  in  our  midst  hold,  in  fact, 
the  belief  that  the  religion  of  the  future  must  be  one 
from  which  the  super-rational  element  is  eliminated. 

Now,  if  we  have  been  right  so  far,  it  would  appear 
that  one  of  the  first  results  of  the  application  of  the 
methods  and  conclusions  of  biological  science  to  human 
society  must  be  to  render  it  clear  that  the  advocates  of 
these  views,  like  the  adherents  of  that  larger  school  of 
thought  which  has  sought  to  find  a  rational  basis  for 
individual  conduct  in  society,  are  in  pursuit  of  some- 
thing which  can  never  exist.  There  can  never  be,  it 
would  appear,  such  a  thing  as  a  rational  religion.  The 
essential  element  in  all  religious  beliefs  must  apparently 
be  the  ultra- rational  sanction  which  they  provide  for 
social  conduct.  When  the  fundamental  nature  of  the 
problem  involved  in  our  social  evolution  is  understood,  it 
must  become  clear  that  that  general  instinct  which  may 
be  distinguished  in  the  minds  of  men  around  us  is  in 
the  main  correct,  and  that : — 

No  form  of  belief  is  capable  of  functioning  as  a 
religion  in  the  evolution  of  society  which  does  not  pro- 
vide an  ultra-rational  sanction  for  social  conduct  in 
the  individual. 

In  other  words  : — 

A  rational  religion  is  a  scientific  impossibility, 
representing  from  the  nature  of  the  case  an  inherent 
contradiction  of  terms. 

The  significance  of  this  conclusion  will  become  evi- 
dent as  we  proceed.  It  opens  up  a  new  and  almost 
unexplored  territory,  We  come,  it  would  appear,  in 
sight  of  the  explanation  why  science,  if  social  systems 
are  organic  growths,  has  hitherto  failed  to  enunciate  the 


102  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

laws  of  their  development,  and  has  accordingly  left  us 
almost  entirely  in  the  dark  as  to  the  nature  of  the 
developmental  forces  and  tendencies  at  work  beneath 
the  varied  and  complex  political  and  social  phenomena 
of  our  time.  The  social  system  which  constitutes  an 
organic  growth,  endowed  with  a  definite  principle  of 
life,  and  unfolding  itself  in  obedience  to  laws  which 
may  be  made  the  subject  of  exact  study,  is  something 
quite  different  from  that  we  have  hitherto  had 
vaguely  in  mind.  It  is  not  the  political  organisation  of 
which  we  form  part;  it  is  not  the  race  to  which  we 
belong;  it  is  not  even  the  whole  human  family  in 
process  of  evolution.  The  organic  growth,  it  would 
appear,  must  be  the  social  system  or  type  of  civilisa- 
tion founded  on  a  form  of  religious  belief.  This  is  the 
organism  which  is  the  seat  of  a  definite  principle  of  life. 
Throughout  its  existence  there  is  maintained  within  it 
a  conflict  of  two  opposing  forces ;  the  disintegrating 
principle  represented  by  the  rational  self-assertiveness 
of  the  individual  units ;  the  integrating  principle  re- 
presented by  a  religious  belief  providing  a  sanction 
for  social  conduct  which  is  always  of  necessity  ultra- 
rational,  and  the  function  of  which  is  to  secure  in  the 
stress  of  evolution  the  continual  subordination  of  the 
interests  of  the  individual  units  to  the  larger  interests 
of  the  longer-lived  social  organism  to  which  they  belong. 
It  is,  it  would  appear,  primarily  through  these  social 
systems  that  natural  selection  must  reach  and  act  upon 
the  race.  It  is  from  the  ethical  systems  upon  which 
they  are  founded  that  the  resulting  types  of  civilisa- 
tion receive  those  specific  characteristics  which,  in  the 
struggle  for  existence,  influence  in  a  preponderating 
degree  the  peoples  affected  by  them.  It  is  in  these 
ethical  systems,  founded  on  super-rational  sanctions,  and 


v  THE  FUNCTION  OF  RELIGIOUS  BELIEFS  103 

in  the  developments  which  they  undergo,  that  we  have 
the  seat  of  a  vast  series  of  vital  phenomena  unfolding 
themselves  under  the  control  of  definite  laws  which 
may  be  made  the  subject  of  study.  The  scientific 
investigation  of  these  phenomena  is  capable,  as  we 
shall  see,  of  throwing  a  flood  of  light  not  only  upon 
the  life-history  of  our  Western  civilisation  in  general, 
but  upon  the  nature  of  the  developmental  forces 
underlying  the  complex  social  and  political  movements 
actually  in  progress  in  the  world  around  us. 

But  before  following  up  this  line  of  inquiry,  let  us 
see  if  the  conclusion  to  which  we  have  been  led  respect- 
ing the  nature  of  the  element  common  to  all  religious 
beliefs  can  be  justified  when  it  is  confronted  with  actual 
facts.  Are  we  thus,  it  may  be  asked,  able  to  unearth 
from  beneath  the  enormous  overgrowth  of  discussion  and 
controversy  to  which  this  subject  has  given  rise,  the 
essential  element  in  all  religions,  and  to  lay  down  a 
simple,  but  clear  and  concise  principle  upon  which  science 
may  in  future  proceed  in  dealing  with  the  religious 
phenomena  of  mankind  ? 

It  is  evident,  from  what  has  been  said,  that  our 
definition  of  a  religion,  in  the  sense  in  which  alone 
science  is  concerned  with  religion  as  a  social  pheno- 
menon, must  run  somewhat  as  follows  : — 

A  religion  is  a  form  of  belief,  providing  an  ultra- 
rational  sanction  for  that  large  class  of  conduct  in  the 
individual  where  his  interests  and  the  interests  of  the 
social  organism  are  antagonistic,  and  by  which  the 
former  are  rendered  subordinate  to  the  latter  in  the 
general  interests  of  the  evolution  which  the  race  is 
undergoing. 

We  have  here  the  principle  at  the  base  of  all  religions, 
Any  religion  is,  of  course,  more  than  this  to  its  adherents ; 


104  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

for  it  must  necessarily  maintain  itself  by  what  is  often  a 
vast  system  of  beliefs  and  ordinances  requiring  acts  and 
observances  which  only  indirectly  contribute  to  the  end 
in  question,  by  assisting  to  uphold  the  principles  of  the 
religion.  It  is  these  which  tend  to  confuse  the  minds 
of  many  observers.  With  them  we  are  not  here  concerned ; 
they  more  properly  fall  under  the  head  of  theology. 

Let  us  see,  therefore,  if  this  element  of  a  super- 
rational  sanction  for  conduct  has  been  the  characteristic 
feature  of  all  religions,  from  those  which  have  influenced 
men  in  a  state  of  low  social  development  up  to  those 
which  now  play  so  large  a  part  in  the  life  of  highly- 
civilised  peoples ;  whether,  despite  recent  theories  to  the 
contrary,  there  is  to  be  discerned  no  tendency  in  those 
beliefs  which  are  obviously  still  influencing  large  numbers 
of  persons  to  eliminate  it. 

Beginning  with  man  at  the  lowest  stage  at  which  his 
habits  have  been  made  a  subject  of  study,  we  are  met 
by  a  curious  and  conflicting  mass  of  evidence  respecting 
his  religious  beliefs.  The  writers  and  observers  whose 
opinions  have  been  recorded  are  innumerable  ;  but  they 
may  be  said  to  be  divided  into  two  camps  on  a  funda- 
mental point  under  discussion.  In  no  stage  of  his 
development,  in  no  society,  and  in  no  condition  of  society, 
is  man  found  without  religion  of  some  sort,  say  one  side. 
Whole  societies  of  men  and  entire  nations  have  existed 
without  anything  which  can  be  described  as  a  religion, 
say  the  other  side.  In  one  of  the  Gifford  Lectures,  Mr. 
Max-Miiller  well  describes  the  confusion  existing  among 
those  who  have  undertaken  to  inform  us  on  the  subject. 
"  Some  missionaries,"  he  says,  "  find  no  trace  of  religion 
where  anthropologists  see  the  place  swarming  with 
ghosts  and  totems  and  fetishes ;  while  other  missionaries 
discover  deep  religious  feelings  in  savages  whom  an  thro- 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  RELIGIOUS  BELIEFS  105 


pologists  declare  perfectly  incapable  of  anything  beyond 
the  most  primitive  sensuous  perception."1  He  goes  on 
to  show  how  these  two  parties  occasionally  change  sides. 
"  When  the  missionary,"  he  declares,  "  wants  to  prove 
that  no  human  being  can  be  without  some  spark  of 
religion,  he  sees  religion  everywhere,  even  in  what  is 
called  totemism  and  fetishism  ;  while  if  he  wants  to 
show  how  necessary  it  is  to  teach  and  convert  these 
irreligious  races  he  cannot  paint  their  abject  state  in  too 
strong  colours,  and  he  is  apt  to  treat  even  their  belief  in 
an  invisible  and  nameless  God  as  mere  hallucination. 
Nor  is  the  anthropologist  free  from  such  temptations. 
If  he  wants  to  prove  that,  like  the  child,  every  race  of 
men  was  at  one  time  atheistic,  then  neither  totems,  nor 
fetishes,  nor  even  prayers  or  sacrifices  are  any  proof  in 
his  eyes  of  an  ineradicable  religious  instinct." 2 

The  dispute  is  an  old  one,  and  examples  of  the 
differences  of  opinion  and  statement  referred  to  by  Mr. 
Max-Miiller  will  be  found  in  books  like  Sir  John 
Lubbock's  Origin  of  Civilisation  and  Prehistoric  Times, 
Tylor's  Primitive  Culture  and  Researches  into  the 
Early  History  of  Mankind,  Quatrefages'  L'Espece 
Humaine,  and  the  more  recent  writings  of  Roskoff, 
Professor  Gruppe,  and  others.  In  the  considerable 
number  of  works  which  continually  issue  from  the  press, 
dealing  with  the  habits  and  beliefs  of  the  lower  races  of 
men,  this  feature  is  very  marked.  A  recent  criticism  of 
one  of  these  (Mr.  H.  L.  Roth's  Aborigines  of  Tasmania) 
in  Nature  concludes  :  "  Such  is  the  nature  of  the 
evidence  bearing  on  the  religious  ideas  of  the  Tasmanians, 
which  Mr.  Roth  has  collected  so  carefully  and  so  con- 
scientiously. Nothing  can  be  more  full  of  contradictions, 

1  Natural  Religion  (Gilford  Lectures),  p.  86. 
2  Ibid.  p.  87. 


io6  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

more  doubtful,  more  perplexing.  Yet,  with  such 
materials,  our  best  anthropologists  and  sociologists  have 
built  up  their  systems.  .  .  .  There  is  hardly  any  kind 
of  religion  which  could  not  be  proved  to  have  been  the 
original  religion  of  the  Tasmanians."  And  it  is  even 
added  that  the  evidence  would  serve  equally  well  to 
show  that  the  Tasmanians  were  "  without  any  religious 
ideas  or  ceremonial  usages." l  Underlying  all  this,  there 
is,  evidently,  a  state  of  chaos  as  regards  general  principles. 
Different  writers  and  observers,  when  they  speak  of  the 
religion  of  lower  races  of  men,  do  not  refer  to  the  same 
thing ;  they  have  themselves  often  no  clear  conception 
of  what  they  mean  by  the  expression.  They  do  not 
know,  in  short,  what  to  look  for  as  the  essential  element 
in  a  religion. 

Now,  there  is  one  universal  and  noteworthy  feature  of 
the  life  of  primitive  man  which  a  comparative  study  of 
his  habits  has  revealed.  "  No  savage,"  says  Sir  John 
Lubbock,  "is  free.  All  over  the  world  his  daily  life  is 
regulated  by  a  complicated  and  apparently  most  incon- 
venient set  of  customs  as  forcible  as  laws."8  We  are 
now  beginning  to  understand  that  it  is  these  customs 
of  savage  man,  strange  and  extraordinary  as  they  appear 
to  us,  that  in  great  measure  take  the  place  of  the  legal 
and  moral  codes  which  serve  to  hold  society  together 
and  contribute  to  its  further  development  in  our  advanced 
civilisations.  The  whole  tendency  of  recent  anthropo- 
logical science  is  to  establish  the  conclusion  that  these 
habits  and  customs,  "  as  forcible  as  laws,"  either  have  or 
had,  directly  or  indirectly,  a  -utilitarian  function  to 
perform  in  the  societies  in  which  they  exist.  Mr. 
Herbert  Spencer  and  others  have  already  traced  in 

1  Vide  Nature,  18th  September  1890. 
*  Origin  of  Civilisation,  p.  301. 


v  THE  FUNCTION  OF  RELIGIOUS  BELIEFS  107 

many  cases  the  important  influence  in  the  evolution  of 
early  society  of  those  customs,  habits,  and  ceremonies  of 
savage  man  which  at  first  sight  often  appear  so  meaning- 
less and  foolish  to  us;  and  though  this  department  of 
science  is  still  young,  there  is  no  doubt  as  to  the  direc- 
tion in  which  current  research  therein  is  leading  us. 

But  if,  on  the  one  hand,  we  find  primitive  man  thus 
everywhere  under  the  sway  of  customs  which  we  are 
to  regard  as  none  other  than  the  equivalent  of  the  legal 
and  moral  codes  of  higher  societies ;  and  if,  on  the  other 
hand,  we  find  these  customs  everywhere  as  forcible  as 
laws,  how,  it  may  be  asked,  are  those  unwritten  laws  of 
savage  society  enforced  ?  The  answer  comes  prompt  and 
without  qualification.  They  are  everywhere  enforced  in 
one  and  the  same  way.  Observance  of  them  is  invariably 
secured  by  the  fear  of  consequences  from  an  agent 
which  is  always  supernatural.  This  agent  may,  and 
does,  assume  a  variety  of  forms,  but  one  characteristic 
it  never  loses.  It  is  always  supernatural.  We  have 
here  the  explanation  of  the  conflict  of  opinions  regarding 
the  religions  of  primitive  man.  Some  writers  assume 
that  he  is  without  religion  because  he  is  without  a 
belief  in  a  Deity.  Others  because  his  Deities  are  all 
evil.  But,  if  we  are  right  so  far,  it  is  not  necessarily  a 
belief  in  a  Deity,  or  in  Deities  which  are  not  evil,  that 
we  must  look  for  as  constituting  the  essential  element  in 
the  religions  of  primitive  men.  The  one  essential  and 
invariable  feature  must  be  a  supernatural  sanction  of 
some  kind  for  acts  and  observances  which  have  a  social 
significance.  This  sanction  we  appear  always  to  have. 
We  are  never  without  the  supernatural  in  some  form. 
The  essential  fact  which  underlies  all  the  prolonged  and 
complicated  controversy  which  has  been  waged  over 
this  subject  was  once  put,  with  perhaps  more  force 


io8  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

than  reverence,  by  Professor  Huxley  into  a  single 
sentence.  "  There  are  savages  without  God  in  any 
proper  sense  of  the  word,  but  there  are  none  without 
ghosts," l  said  he ;  and  the  generalisation,  however  it 
may  have  been  intended,  expresses  in  effective  form 
the  one  fundamental  truth  in  the  discussion  with 
which  science  is  concerned.  It  is  the  supernatural 
agents,  the  deities,  spirits,  ghosts,  with  which  primitive 
man  peoples  the  air,  water,  rocks,  trees,  his  dwellings 
and  his  implements,  which  everywhere  provide  the 
ultimate  sanction  used  to  enforce  conduct  which  has  a 
social  significance  of  the  kind  in  question.  Whatever 
qualities  these  agents  may  be  supposed  to  possess  or  to 
lack,  one  attribute  they  always  have  ;  they  are  invariably 
supernatural 

When  we  leave  savage  man,  and  rise  a  step  higher 
to  those  societies  which  have  made  some  progress  to- 
wards civilisation,  we  find  the  prevailing  religions  still 
everywhere  possessing  the  same  distinctive  features ; 
they  are  always  associated  with  social  conduct,  and 
they  continue  to  be  invariably  founded  on  a  belief  in 
the  supernatural.  In  the  religion  of  the  ancient 
Egyptians,  we  encounter  this  element  at  every  point. 
Professor  Tiele  says  that  the  two  things  which  were 
specially  characteristic  of  it,  were  the  worship  of  animals 
and  the  worship  of  the  dead.  The  worship  of  the  dead 
took  the  foremost  place.  "  The  animals  worshipped — 
originally  nothing  but  fetishes  which  they  continued 
to  be  for  the  great  majority  of  the  worshippers — were 
brought  by  the  doctrinal  expositions,  and  by  the 
educated  classes,  into  connection  with  certain  particular 
Gods,  and  thus  came  to  be  regarded  as  the  terrestrial 
incarnation  of  these  Gods."  The  belief  in  the  super- 

1  Lay  Sermons  and  Addresses,  p.  163. 


v  THE  FUNCTION  OF  RELIGIOUS  BELIEFS  109 

natural  was  the  characteristic  feature  of  the  religion 
of  the  ancient  Chinese,  and  this  element  has  survived 
unchanged  in  it,  through  all  the  developments  it 
has  undergone  down  to  our  own  day,  as  well  as  in 
the  other  forms  of  religious  belief  which  influence  the 
millions  of  the  Celestial  empire  at  the  present  time. 
The  religion  of  the  ancient  Assyrians  presents  the  same 
essential  features.  It  was  a  polytheism  with  a  large 
number  of  deities  who  were  objects  of  adoration.  We 
already  find  in  it  some  idea  of  a  future  life,  and  of 
rewards  and  punishments  therein,  the  latter  varying 
according  to  different  degrees  of  wickedness  in  this 
life. 

In  the  religions  of  the  early  Greeks  and  Romans, 
representing  the  forms  of  belief  prevalent  amongst 
peoples  who  eventually  attained  to  the  highest  state 
of  civilisation  anterior  to  our  own,  we  have  features 
of  peculiar  interest.  The  religion  of  the  prehistoric 
ancestors  of  both  peoples  was  in  all  probability  a  form 
of  ancestor  worship.  The  isolated  family  ruled  by  the 
head,  with,  as  a  matter  of  course,  absolute  power  over 
the  members,  was  the  original  unit  alike  in  the  religious 
and  political  systems  of  these  peoples.  At  the  death  of 
some  all-powerful  head  of  this  kind,  his  spirit  was  held 
in  awe,  and,  as  generations  went  on,  the  living  master 
of  the  house  found  himself  ruling  simply  as  the  vice- 
gerent of  the  man  from  whom  he  had  inherited  his 
authority.  Thus  arose  the  family  religion  which  was 
the  basis  of  the  Greek  and  Latin  systems,  all  outside 
the  family  religion  being  regarded  as  aliens  or  enemies. 
As  the  family  expanded  in  favourable  circumstances 
into  a  related  group  .(the  Latin  gens),  and  the  gens  in 
turn  into  clans  (phratriari),  and  these  again  into  tribes 
(phylai),  an  aggregate  of  which  formed  the  city  state 


no  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

or  polis,  the  idea  of  family  relationship  remained  the 
characteristic  feature  of  the  religion.  All  the  groups, 
including  the  polis,  were,  as  Sir  G.  W.  Cox  points  out, 
religious  societies,  and  the  subordinate  fellowships  were 
"  religious  with  an  intensity  scarcely  to  us  conceivable." 
In  the  development  which  such  a  system  underwent 
among  the  early  Romans — a  system  hard,  cruel,  and 
unpitying,  which  necessarily  led  to  the  treatment  of  all 
outsiders  as  enemies  or  aliens  fit  only  to  be  made  slaves 
of  or  tributaries — we  had  the  necessary  religion  for  the 
people  who  eventually  made  themselves  masters  of  the 
world,  and  in  whom  the  military  type  of  society  ulti- 
mately culminated. 

But  if  it  is  asked,  what  the  sanction  was  behind  the 
religious  requirements  of  these  social  groups  "  religious 
with  an  intensity  scarcely  to  us  conceivable,"  the 
answer  is  still  the  same.  There  is  no  qualification. 
It  is  still  invariably  supernatural,  using  this  term  in 
the  sense  of  ultra -rational.  The  conception  of  the 
supernatural  has  become  a  higher  one  than  that  which 
prevailed  amongst  primitive  men,  and  the  development 
in  this  direction  may  be  distinguished  actually  in  pro- 
gress, but  the  belief  in  this  sanction  survives  in  all  its 
force.  The  religions  of  ancient  Greece  and  Rome  at  the 
period  of  their  highest  influence  drew  their  strength 
everywhere  from  the  belief  in  the  supernatural,  and  it 
has  to  be  observed  that  their  decay  dated  from,  and 
progressed  pari  passu  with,  the  decay  of  this  belief 
The  Roman  religion  which  so  profoundly  influenced  the 
development  of  Roman  civilisation  derived  its  influence 
throughout  its  history  from  the  belief  in  the  minds  of 
men  that  its  rules  and  ordinances  had  a  supernatural 
origin.  Summarising  its  characteristics  Mr.  Lecky  says  : 
"  It  gave  a  kind  of  official  consecration  to  certain  virtues 


v  THE  FUNCTION  OF  RELIGIOUS  BELIEFS  in 

and  commemorated  special  instances  in  which  they  had 
been  displayed  ;  its  local  character  strengthened  patriotic 
feeling,  its  worship  of  the  dead  fostered  a  vague  belief  in 
the  immortality  of  the  soul ;  it  sustained  the  supremacy 
of  the  father  in  the  family,  surrounded  marriage  with 
many  imposing  ceremonies,  and  created  simple  and 
reverent  characters  profoundly  submissive  to  an  over- 
ruling Providence  and  scrupulously  observant  of  sacred 
rites."1  A  belief  in  the  supernatural  was  in  fact  every- 
where present,  and  it  constituted  the  essential  element 
of  strength  in  the  Koman  religion. 

If  we  turn  again  to  Mohammedanism  and  Buddhism, 
forms  of  belief  influencing  large  numbers  of  men  at  the 
present  day  outside  our  own  civilisation,  we  still  find 
these  essential  features.  The  same  sanction  for  conduct 
is  always  present.  The  essence  of  Buddhist  morality 
Mr.  Max-Miiller  states  to  be  a  belief  in  Karma,  that  is, 
of  work  done  in  this  or  a  former  life  which  must  go  on 
producing  effects.  "  We  are  born  as  what  we  deserve 
to  be  born  ;  we  are  paying  our  penalty  or  receiving  our 
reward  in  this  life  for  former  acts.  This  makes  the 
sufferer  more  patient ;  for  he  feels  that  he  is  wiping  out 
an  old  debt;  while  the  happy  man  knows  that  he  is 
living  on  the  interest  of  his  capital  of  good  works,  and 
that  he  must  try  to  lay  by  more  capital  for  a  future 
life."2  We  have  only  to  look  for  a  moment  to  see  that 
we  have  in  this  the  same  ultra -rational  sanction  for 
conduct.  There  is  and  can  be  no  proof  of  such  a 
theory ;  on  the  contrary,  it  assumes  a  cause  operating 
in  a  manner  altogether  beyond  the  tests  of  reason  and 
experience. 

We  may  survey  the  whole  field  of  man's  religions  in 

1  History  of  European  Morals,  voL  i.  pp.  176,  177. 
2  Natural  Religion,  p.  112. 


ii2  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP, 

societies  both  anterior  to,  and  contemporaneous  with 
our  modern  civilisation,  and  we  shall  find  that  all 
religious  beliefs  possess  these  characteristic  features. 
There  is  no  exception.  Everywhere  these  beliefs  are 
associated  with  conduct,  having  a  social  significance ; 
and  everywhere  the  ultimate  sanction  which  they 
provide  for  the  conduct  which  they  prescribe  is  a 
super-rational  one. 

Coming  at  last  to  the  advanced  societies  of  the 
present  day,  we  are  met  by  a  condition  of  things  of 
great  interest.  The  facts  which  appeared  so  confusing 
in  the  last  chapter  now  fall  into  place  with  striking 
regularity.  The  observer  remarks  at  the  outset  that 
there  exist  now,  as  at  other  times  in  the  world's  history, 
forms  of  belief  intended  to  regulate  conduct  in  which  a 
super-rational  sanction  has  no  place.  But,  with  no  want 
of  respect  for  the  persons  who  hold  these  views,  he  finds 
himself  compelled  to  immediately  place  such  beliefs  on 
one  side.  None  of  them,  he  notes,  has  proved  itself  to 
be  a  religion ;  none  of  them  can  so  far  claim  to  have 
influenced  and  moved  large  masses  of  men  in  the 
manner  of  a  religion.  He  can  find  no  exception  to  this 
rule.  If  he  desired  to  accept  any  one  of  them  as  a 
religion  he  notes  that  he  would  be  constrained  to  do  so 
merely  on  the  ipse  dixit  of  the  small  group  of  persons 
who  chose  so  to  describe  it 

When  we  turn,  however,  to  these  forms  of  belief 
which  are  unquestionably  influencing  men  in  the  manner 
of  a  religion,  we  have  to  mark  that  they  have  one  pro- 
nounced and  universal  characteristic.  The  sanction 
they  offer  for  the  conduct  they  prescribe  is  un- 
mistakably a  super -rational  one.  We  may  regard 
the  whole  expanse  of  our  modern  civilisation  and  we 
shall  have  to  note  that  there  is  no  exception  to  this 


v  THE  FUNCTION  OF  RELIGIOUS  BELIEFS  113 

rule.  Nay,  more,  we  shall  have  to  acknowledge,  if  we 
keep  our  minds  free  from  confusion,  that  there  is  no 
tendency  whatever  to  eliminate  the  super  -  rational 
element  from  religions.  Individuals  may  lose  faith, 
may  withhold  belief,  and  may  found  parties  of  their 
own ;  but  among  the  religions  themselves  we  shall  find 
no  evidence  of  any  kind  of  movement  or  law  of  develop- 
ment in  this  direction.  On  the  contrary,  however 
these  beliefs  may  differ  from  each  other,  or  from  the 
religions  of  the  past,  they  have  the  one  feature  in 
common  that  they  all  assert  uncompromisingly  that 
the  rules  of  conduct  which  they  enjoin  have  an  ultra- 
rational  sanction,  and  that  right  and  wrong  are  right 
and  wrong  by  divine  or  supernatural  enactment  outside 
of,  and  independent  of,  any  other  cause  whatever. 

This  is  true  of  every  form  of  religion  that  we 
see  influencing  men  in  the  world  around  us,  from 
Buddhism  to  the  Eoman  Catholic  Church  and  the  Sal- 
vation Army.  The  supernatural  element  in  religion, 
laments  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer,  "  survives  in  great 
strength  down  to  our  own  day.  Keligious  creeds, 
established  and  dissenting,  all  embody  the  belief  that 
right  and  wrong  are  right  and  wrong  simply  in  virtue 
of  divine  enactment." l  This  is  so  :  but  not  apparently 
because  of  some  meaningless  instinct  in  man.  It  is 
so  in  virtue  of  a  fundamental  law  of  our  social  evolu- 
tion. It  is  not  that  men  perversely  reject  the  light  set 
before  them  by  that  school  of  ethics  which  has  found 
its  highest  expression  in  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer's  theories. 
It  is  simply  that  the  deep-seated  instincts  of  society 
have  a  truer  scientific  basis  than  our  current  science. 

Finally,  if  our  inquiry  so  far  has  led  us  to  correct 
conclusions,  we  have  the  clue  to  a  large  class  of  facts. 

1  Data  of  Ethics,  p.  50. 

I 


U4  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP 

which  has  attracted  the  notice  of  many  observers,  but 
which  has  hitherto  been  without  scientific  explanation. 
We  see  now  why  it  is  that,  as  Mr.  Lecky  asserts,  "  all 
religions  which  have  governed  mankind  have  done 
so  ...  by  speaking,  as  common  religious  language 
describes  it,  to  the  heart,1 "  and  not  to  the  intellect ;  or, 
as  an  advocate  of  Christianity  has  recently  put  it — A 
religion  makes  its  way  not  by  argument,  or  by  the 
rational  sanctions  which  it  offers,  "  but  by  an  appeal  to 
those  fundamental  spiritual  instincts  of  men  to  which 
it  supremely  corresponds."2  We  see  also  why,  despite 
the  apparent  tendency  to  the  disintegration  of  religious 
belief  among  the  intellectual  classes  at  the  present  day, 
those  who  seek  to  compromise  matters  by  getting  rid 
of  that  feature  which  is  the  essential  element  in  all 
religions  make  no  important  headway ;  and  why,  as  a 
prominent  member  of  one  of  the  churches  has  recently 
remarked,  the  undogmatic  sects  reap  the  scantiest 
harvest,  while  the  dogmatic  churches  still  take  the 
multitude.  We  are  led  to  perceive  how  inherently 
hopeless  and  misdirected  is  the  effort  of  those  who  try 
to  do  what  Camus  and  Gre*goire  attempted  to  make 
the  authors  of  the  French  Revolution  do — reorganise 
Christianity  without  believing  in  Christ.  A  form  of 
belief  from,  which  the  ultra-rational  element  has  been 
eliminated  is,  it  would  appear,  no  longer  capable  of 
exercising  the  function  of  a  religion. 

Professor  Huxley,  some  time  ago,  in  a  severe 
criticism  of  the  "  Religion  of  Humanity  "  advocated  by 
the  followers  of  Comte,8  asserted,  in  accents  which 
always  come  naturally  to  the  individual  when  he  looks 

1  History  of  European  Morals,  vol.  i.  p.  68. 

*  W.  S.  Lilly,  Nineteenth  Century,  September  1889. 

8  Nineteenth  Century,  February  1889. 


r  THE  FUNCTION  OF  RELIGIOUS  BELIEFS  115 

at  the  drama  of  human  life  from  his  own  standpoint, 
that  he  would  as  soon  worship  "  a  wilderness  of  apes  " 
as  the  Positivist's  rationalised  conception  of  humanity. 
But  the  comparison  with  which  he  concluded,  in 
which  he  referred  to  the  considerable  progress  made 
by  Mormonism  as  contrasted  with  Positivism,  has  its 
explanation  when  viewed  in  the  light  of  the  fore- 
going conclusions.  Mormonism  may  be  a  mon- 
strous form  of  belief,  and  one  which  is  undoubtedly 
destined  to  be  worsted  in  conflict  with  the  forms  of 
Christianity  prevailing  round  it;  yet  it  is  seen  that 
we  cannot  deny  to  it  the  characteristics  of  a  religion. 
Although,  on  the  other  hand,  the  "  Religion  of 
Humanity"  advocated  by  Comte  may  be,  and  is,  a 
most  exemplary  set  of  principles,  we  perceive  it  to  be 
without  those  characteristics.  It  is  not,  apparently,  a 
religion  at  all.  It  is,  like  other  forms  of  belief  which 
do  not  provide  a  super-rational  sanction  for  conduct,  but 
which  call  themselves  religions,  incapable,  from  the 
nature  of  the  conditions,  of  exercising  the  functions  of 
a  religion  in  the  evolution  of  society.1 

1  It  is  very  interesting  to  notice  how  clearly  Q.  H.  Lewes,  himself  a 
distinguished  adherent  of  Comte,  perceived  the  inherent  antagonism  be- 
tween  religion  and  philosophy  (the  aim  of  the  latter  having  always  been  to 
establish  a  rational  sanction  for  conduct),  and  yet  without  realising  the 
significance  of  this  antagonism  in  the  process  of  social  evolution  the  race 
is  undergoing.  Speaking  of  the  attempt  made  in  the  past  to  establish 
a  "  Religious  philosophy,"  he  remarks  upon  its  innate  impossibility  be- 
cause the  doctrines  of  religion  have  always  been  held  to  have  been  revealed, 
and  therefore  beyond  and  inaccessible  to  reason.  "So  that,"  he  says, 
"  metaphysical  problems,  the  attempted  solution  of  which  by  Reason  constitutes 
fhilbsophy,  are  solved  by  Faith  and  yet  the  name  of  Philosophy  is  re- 
tained !  But  the  very  groundwork  of  Philosophy  consists  in  reasoning, 
as  the  groundwork  of  Religion  is  Faith.  There  cannot,  consequently,  be 
a  Religious  Philosophy  :  it  is  a  contradiction  in  terms.  Philosophy  may 
be  occupied  about  the  same  problems  as  Religion  ;  but  it  employs  al- 
together different  criteria,  and  depends  on  altogether  different  prin- 
ciples. Religion  may,  and  should  call  in  Philosophy  to  its  aid  ;  but  in  so 
doing  it  assigns  to  Philosophy  only  the  subordinate  office  of  illustrating, 


Ji6  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

In  the  religious  beliefs  of  mankind  we  have  not 
simply  a  class  of  phenomena  peculiar  to  the  child- 
hood of  the  race.  We  have  therein  the  char- 
acteristic feature  of  our  social  evolution.  These 
beliefs  constitute,  in  short,  the  natural  and  inevitable 
complement  of  our  reason ;  and  so  far  from  being 
threatened  with  eventual  dissolution  they  are  apparently 
destined  to  continue  to  grow  with  the  growth  and  to 
develop  with  the  development  of  society,  while  always 
preserving  intact  and  unchangeable  the  one  essential 
feature  they  all  have  in  common  in  the  ultra-rational 
sanction  they  provide  for  conduct.  And  lastly,  as  we 
understand  how  an  ultra-rational  sanction  for  the  sacri- 
fice of  the  interests  of  the  individual  to  those  of  the 
social  organism  has  been  a  feature  common  to  all 
religions  we  see,  also,  why  the  conception  of  sacrifice 
has  occupied  such  a  central  place  in  nearly  all  beliefs, 
and  why  the  tendency  of  religion  has  ever  been  to  sur- 
round this  principle  with  the  most  impressive  and 
stupendous  of  sanctions.1 

reconciling,  or  applying  its  dogmas.  This  is  not  a  Religious  Philosophy, 
it  ia  Religion  and  Philosophy,  the  latter  stripped  of  its  boasted  preroga- 
tive of  deciding  for  itself,  and  allowed  only  to  employ  itself  in  reconcil- 
ing the  decisions  of  Religion  and  of  Reason"  (History  of  Philosophy, 
voL  i.  p.  409).  These  are  words  written  with  true  scientific  insight 
But  a  clearer  perception  of  the  fundamental  problem  of  human  evolu- 
tion might  have  led  the  writer  to  see  that  the  universal  instinct  of  man- 
kind which  has  recognised  that  the  essential  element  in  a  religion  is 
that  its  doctrines  should  1  >e  inaccessible  to  reason  has  its  foundation  in 
the  very  nature  of  the  problem  our  social  evolution  presents ;  and 
that  the  error  of  Comte  has  been  in  assuming  that  a  set  of  principles 
from  which  this  element  has  been  eliminated  is  capable  of  performing  the 
functions  of  a  religion. 

1  It  is  the  expression  of  the  antagonism  between  the  interests  of  the 
individual  and  those  of  the  social  organism  in  process  of  evolution  that  we 
have  in  Kant's  conception  of  the  opposition  between  the  inner  and  outer 
life,  in  Green's  idea  of  the  antagonism  between  the  natural  m/m  and  the 
spiritual  man,  and  in  Professor  Caird's  conception  of  the  differences  between 
self  and  not  self  We  would  not  be  precluded  from  accepting  religion  in 


v  THE  FUNCTION  OF  RELIGIOUS  BELIEFS  117 

To  the  consideration  of  the  results  flowing  from  this 
recognition  of  the  real  nature  of  the  problem  under- 
lying our  social  development  we  have  now  to  address 
ourselves.  If  we  have,  in  the  social  system  founded 
on  a  form  of  religious  belief,  the  true  organic  growth 
with  which  science  is  concerned,  we  must,  it  would 
appear,  be  able  then  to  discover  some  of  the  principles 
of  development  under  the  influence  of  which  the  social 
growth  proceeds.  If  it  is  in  the  ethical  system  upon 
which  a  social  type  is  founded  that  we  have  the  seat  of 
a  vast  series  of  vital  phenomena  unfolding  themselves 
in  obedience  to  law,  then  we  must  be  able  to  investigate 
the  phenomena  of  the  past  and  to  observe  the  tendencies 
of  the  current  time  with  more  profit  than  the  study  of 
either  history  or  sociology  has  hitherto  afforded.  Let 
us  see,  therefore,  with  what  prospect  of  success  the 
biologist,  who  has  carried  the  principles  of  his  science 
so  far  into  human  society,  may  now  address  himself 
to  the  consideration  of  the  history  of  that  process  of 
life  in  the  midst  of  which  we  are  living,  and  which  we 
know  under  the  name  of  Western  Civilisation. 

Fichte's  sense — as  the  realisation  of  universal  reason — if  we  can  understand 
universal  reason  involving  the  conception  that  the  highest  good  is  the  further- 
ance of  the  evolutionary  process  the  race  is  undergoing.  But  once  we  have 
clearly  grasped  the  nature  of  the  characteristic  problem  human  evolution 
presents  we  see  how  absolutely  individual  rationalism  has  been  precluded 
from  attaining  this  position  :  it  can  only  be  reached  as  Kant  contemplated 
— "by  a  faith  of  reason  which  postulates  a  God  to  realise  it"  (i.e.  the 
ultra-rational).  Individuals  repudiating  ultra-rational  sanctions  may  feel 
it  possible  to  willingly  participate  in  the  cosmic  process  in  progress  ;  but 
conclusions  often  drawn  from  this  involve  an  incomplete  realisation  of  the 
fact  that  the  feelings  which  render  it  possible  are — like  our  civilisations 
themselves — the  direct  product  of  ethical  systems  founded  on  ultra-rational 
sanctions.  We  live  and  move  in  the  midst  of  the  influences  of  these 
systems,  and  it  is  only  by  a  mental  effort  of  which  only  the  strongest 
minds  are  capable  that  we  can  even  imagine  what  our  action,  or  the 
action  of  others,  would  be  "if  they  were  non-existent. 


CHAPTER  VI 

WESTERN   CIVILISATION 

To  obtain  even  a  general  idea  of  that  vast  organic 
growth  in  the  midst  of  which  we  are  living,  and  which 
for  want  of  a  better  name  we  call  Western  Civilisation, 
it  is  absolutely  necessary  that  the  point  of  view  should 
be  removed  to  some  distance*  When  this  is  done  the 
resulting  change  in  aspect  is  very  striking.  We  are  apt 
to  imagine  that  many  of  the  more  obvious  features  of 
the  society  in  which  we  live  go  to  constitute  the  natural 
and  normal  condition  of  the  world;  that  they  have 
always  existed,  and  that  it  is  part  of  the  order  of  things 
that  they  should  always  continue  to  exist.  It  is  far  more 
difficult  than  might  be  imagined  for  the  average  mind  to 
realise  that  the  main  features  of  our  modern  society 
are  quite  special  in  the  history  of  the  world ;  that  institu- 
tions which  seem  a  necessary  part  of  our  daily  life  and 
of  our  national  existence  are  absolutely  new  and  excep- 
tional; and  that  under  the  outward  appearance  of  stability 
they  are  still  undergoing  rapid  change  and  development. 
We  have  only  to  look  round  us  to  immediately 
perceive  how  comparatively  recent  in  origin  are  many 
of  the  most  characteristic  features  of  our  social  life. 
Our  trades,  commerce,  and  manufactures,  our  banking 
systems,  our  national  debts,  our  huge  systems  of  credit, 


CHAP,  vi  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  119 

are  the  growth  of  scarcely  more  than  two  centuries. 
The  revolution  in  methods  of  travel  and  means  of 
communication,  and  our  systems  of  universal  education, 
are  the  products  of  the  century  in  which  we  are  still 
living.  The  capitalism  and  industrialism  of  to-day, 
and  the  world  market  which  they  seek  to  supply,  are 
but  recent  growths.  The  immense  revolution  which 
applied  science  has  made  in  the  modern  world,  dates 
its  beginning  scarcely  more  than  a  century  back,  is  still 
in  full  progress,  and  is  yet  far  from  having  reached  a 
point  at  which  any  limits  whatever  can  be  set  to  it. 
Yet  all  these  things  are  brought  before  the  mind  only 
with  an  effort.  "  It  is,"  says  Sir  Henry  Maine,  "  in  spite 
of  overwhelming  evidence,  most  difficult  for  a  citizen  of 
Western  Europe  to  bring  thoroughly  home  to  himself 
the  truth  that  the  civilisation  which  surrounds  him  is 
a  rare  exception  in  the  history  of  the  world." l  It  is  a 
still  more  difficult  task  for  the  observer  to  realise  that, 
in  point  of  time,  it  is  all  a  growth  occupying  a  very 
small  space  in  the  period  with  which  history  deals,  and 
an  almost  infinitesimal  span  of  time  in  the  period  during 
which  the  human  race  has  existed. 

When  we  bring  ourselves  to  look,  from  this  point 
of  view,  at  the  times  in  which  we  live,  we  begin  to 
perceive  that  no  just  estimate  of  the  tendencies  of  our 
civilisation,  or  of  the  nature  of  the  forces  at  work 
therein,  can  be  arrived  at  by  merely  taking  into  account 
those  new  forces  which  have  been  unloosed  amongst  us 
during  the  last  century  or  two.  One  of  the  most 
characteristic  features  of  the  social  literature  of  our 
time  is,  nevertheless,  the  attempt  which  is  often  made 
therein  to  consider  our  social  problems  as  if  they  were 
the  isolated  growths  of  a  short  period.  It  would  appear 

1  Ancient  Law,  p.  22. 


120  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

that  those  who  think  about  these  problems,  while 
rightly  perceiving  that  we  in  reality  live  in  the  midst 
of  the  most  rapid  change  and  progress,  forthwith  be- 
come so  impressed  with  the  magnitude  of  the  change, 
that  they  overlook  the  connection  between  the  present 
and  the  past,  and  form  no  true  conception  of  the  depth 
and  strength  of  the  impression  which  the  centuries,  that 
have  preceded  our  own,  have  produced  on  the  age  in 
which  we  are  living.  The  essential  unity  and  continuity 
of  th?  vital  process  which  has  been  in  progress  in  our 
civilisation  from  the  beginning  is  almost  entirely  lost 
sight  of.  Many  of  the  writers  on  social  subjects  at  the 
present  day  are  like  the  old  school  of  geologists ;  they 
seem  to  think  that  progress  has  consisted  in  a  series 
of  cataclysms.  Some  there  are  who  would  almost 
have  us  believe  that  society  was  created  anew  at  the 
period  of  the  French  Revolution ;  and  in  the  French 
nation  of  the  present  day  we  have  the  extraordinary 
spectacle  of  a  whole  people  who  have  cut  themselves 
off  from  the  past  in  the  world  of  thought,  almost  as 
completely  as  they  have  done  in  the  world  of  politics. 
Others  see  the  same  destructive,  transforming,  and 
recreative  influences  in  universal  suffrage,  universal 
education,  the  rule  of  democracy,  and  modern  socialism, 
instead  of  only  the  connected  features  of  a  vast  orderly 
process  of  development  unfolding  itself  according  to  law. 

If  then  our  civilisation  is  a  rare  exception  in  the 
history  of  the  world,  and  if  at  the  same  time  it  is,  and 
has  been  from  the  beginning,  in  a  state  of  change  and 
constant  development,  the  question  which  presents  itself 
at  the  outset  is :  What  are  the  characteristics  in  which 
this  civilisation  differs  from  that  of  other  peoples,  and 
from  the  civilisations  of  the  past  ? 

When   such   a   comparison   is   instituted   the  most 


vi  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  121 

striking  and  obvious  features  immediately  present 
themselves  in  the  great  advances  which  have  been 
made  in  the  arts  of  life,  in  trade,  manufactures,  and 
commerce,  in  the  practical  appliances  of  science,  and 
the  means  of  communication.  But  we  may,  neverthe- 
less, put  these  features  entirely  aside  for  the  present. 
A  little  reflection  suffices  to  make  it  clear  that  the 
civilisation  around  us  does  not  owe  its  existence  to 
these ;  but  that,  on  the  contrary,  these  features,  like 
many  others,  have  had  their  cause  and  origin  in  certain 
principles  inherent  in  our  civilisation  existing  apart 
in  themselves,  and  serving  to  distinguish  it  from  the 
civilisations  of  other  peoples  and  other  times. 

If  we  look  round  us  we  may  perceive  that,  although 
the  system  of  civilisation  to  which  we  belong  has  a 
clearly-defined  place  amongst  the  peoples  of  the  earth, 
it  has  really  no  definite  racial  or  national  boundaries. 
It  is  not  Teutonic  or  Celtic  or  Latin  civilisation.  Nor 
is  it  German  or  French  or  Italian  or  Anglo-Saxon.  .  So 
far  as  we  have  any  right  to  connect  it  with  locality,  it 
might  be  described  as  European  civilisation,  although 
this  definition  would  still  be  incomplete  if  not  inac- 
curate. The  expression  which  is  applied  most  suitably 
to  describe  the  social  system  to  which  we  belong  is 
that  in  general  use,  viz.  "  Western  Civilisation." 

Now,  viewing  this  civilisation  as  a  single  continuous 
growth,  there  can  be  little  doubt  as  to  the  point  at 
which  its  life- history  begins.  We  must  go  back  to  the 
early  centuries  of  our  Era.  This  extraordinary  period 
in  the  world's  history  possesses  the  deepest  interest  for 
the  scientific  mind.  At  that  time  a  civilisation,  not 
only  the  most  powerful  and  successful  which  man  had 
so  far  evolved,  but  in  which  all  previous  civilisations 
had  found  their  highest  type  and  expression,  had  already 


122  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

commenced  to  die,  even  though  it  still  possessed  all  the 
outward  appearance  of  strength  and  majesty.  It  had 
culminated  in  a  period  of  extraordinary  intellectual 
activity.  Into  the  century  before  and  that  immedi- 
ately following  the  Christian  era,  there  are  crowded 
the  names  of  an  altogether  remarkable  number  of  men 
who  did  work  of  the  very  highest  order  in  nearly  every 
sphere  of  intellectual  activity  then  open  to  the  world. 
Cicero,  Varro,  Virgil,  Catullus,  Horace,  Lucretius,  Ovid, 
Tibullus,  Sallust,  Caesar,  Livy,  Juvenal,  the  two  Plinys, 
Seneca,  Quintilian,  and  Tacitus  in  literature  alone  are 
all  included  in  this  brief  period.  They  have  all  left 
work  by  which  they  are  still  remembered,  some  of  it 
probably  reaching  the  highest  degree  of  intellectual 
excellence  to  which  the  human  mind  has  ever  attained. 
But  the  .Roman  genius  had  passed  its  flowering  period. 
Roman  civilisation  had  reached  its  prime.  The  organism 
had  ceased  to  grow,  and  the  vigorous  life  which  had 
flowed  in  so  many  diverse  channels  throughout  the 
vast  body  had  begun  to  wane. 

We  have  to  note  that  for  some  time  previously  the 
ethical  system  upon  which  the  Roman  dominion  had 
been  built  up  had  begun  to  decay.  It  no  longer  con- 
trolled men's  minds.  "  The  old  religions,"  says  Mr. 
Froude,  speaking  of  Caesar's  time,  "were  dead,  from 
the  Pillars  of  Hercules  to  the  Euphrates  and  the  Nile, 
and  the  principles  upon  which  human  society  had  been 
constructed  were  dead  also."1  The  efforts  of  successive 
emperors,  beginning  with  Augustus,  to  restore  old  forms, 
to  prop  up  declining  religion,  and  to  revive  the  spirit 
of  a  defunct  ethical  system,  were  utterly  vain.  Hence- 
forward, amid  all  the  intellectual  systems  for  regulating 
conduct  which  the  time  produced,  we  have  only  to 

1  Ccesaf,  by  J.  A.  Froude. 


vi  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  123 

watch  the  progress  of  those  well-marked  and  well- 
known  symptoms  of  decay  and  dissolution  which  life 
at  a  certain  stage  everywhere  presents. 

But  underneath  all  this  history  of  death  the  ob- 
server has,  outlined  before  him,  a  remarkable  spectacle. 
It  is  the  phenomenon  of  a  gigantic  birth.  To  the 
scientific  mind,  there  can  be  no  mistaking  the  signs 
which  accompany  the  beginning  of  life,  whether  it  be  the 
birth  of  the  humblest  plant,  or  x>f  a  new  solar  system ; 
and  in  the  fierce  ebullition  of  life  which  characterised 
that  extraordinary  and  little  understood  period  of  the 
world's  history,  commencing  with  the  first  centuries 
of  our  era,  we  have  evidently  the  beginning  of  a  vast 
series  of  vital  phenomena  of  profound  scientific  interest. 

The  new  force  which  was  born  into  the  world 
with  the  Christian  religion  was,  evidently,  from  the  very 
first,  of  immeasurable  social  significance.  The  original 
impetus  was  immense.  The  amorphous  vigour  of  life 
was  so  great  that  several  centuries  have  to  pass  away 
before  any  clear  idea  can  be  obtained  of  even  the  out- 
lines of  the  growth  which  it  was  destined  to  build  up 
out  of  the  dead  elements  around  it.  From  the  very 
beginning  its  action  was  altogether  unusual.  The 
constructive  principle  of  life  was  unmistakable ;  men 
seemed  to  be  transformed  ;  the  ordinary  motives  of  the 
individual  mind  appeared  to  be  extinguished.  The 
new  religion  evoked,  "to  a  degree  before  unexampled 
in  the  world,  an  enthusiastic  devotion  to  its  corporate 
welfare,  analogous  to  that  which  the  patriot  bears  to 
his  country."  There  sprang  from  it  "a  stern,  aggres- 
sive, and  at  the  same  time  disciplined  enthusiasm,  wholly 
unlike  any  other  that  had  been  witnessed  upon  earth."  2 

1  W.  E.  H.  Lecky,  History  of  European  Morals,  vol.  i.  vide  p.  409  etc. 

2  Ibid. 


124  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

Amid  the  corruption  of  the  time  the  new  life 
flourished  as  a  thing  apart;  it  took  the  disintegrated 
units  and  built  them  up  into  the  new  order,  drawing 
strength  from  the  decay  which  was  in  progress  around 
it.  When  the  state  at  length  put  forth  its  influence 
against  it  in  the  persecutions  which  followed,  it  only 
exhibited  the  altogether  uncontrollable  nature  of  the 
force  which  was  moving  the  minds  of  men.  The  sub- 
ordination of  the  materials  to  the  constructive  principle 
of  life  which  was  at  work  amongst  them,  was  complete. 
"  There  has  probably  never  existed  upon  earth  a  com- 
munity whose  members  were  bound  to  one  another  by 
a  deeper  or  purer  affection  than  the  Christians  in  the 
days  of  the  persecution,"  says  Mr.  Lecky.1  Self  seemed 
to  be  annihilated.  The  boundaries  of  classes,  and  even 
of  nationalities  and  of  races,  went  down  before  the  new 
affinities  which  overmastered  the  strongest  instincts  of 
men's  minds. 

We  have  to  note  also  that  the  new  force  was  in  no 
way  the  product  of  reason  or  of  the  intellect. r'  No  im- 
petus came  from  this  quarter.  As  in  all  movements  of 
the  kind,  the  intellectual  forces  of  the  time  were  directly 
in  opposition.  The  growing  point  where  all  the  phe- 
nomena of  life  were  actively  in  progress,  was  buried 
low  down  in  the  under-strata  of  society  amongst  the 
most  ignorant  and  least  influential  classes.  The  in- 
tellectual scrutiny  which  had  undermined  the  old 
faiths,  saw  nothing  in  the  new.  So  ignorant  were  men 
of  the  nature  of  the  physiological  laws  to  which  the 
social  organism  is  subject,  that  the  intellectual  classes 
were  altogether  unconscious,  both  of  the  nature  and  of 
the  destiny  of  the  movement  which  was  unfolding  it- 
self underneath  their  eyes.  They  were  either  actively 

1  W.  E.  H.  Lecky,  History  of  European  Morals,  vol.  i.  vide  p.  409  etc. 


vi  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  125 

hostile  or  passively  contemptuous.  There  is  no  fact  in 
the  history  of  the  human  mind  more  remarkable,  says 
Mr.  Lecky,  than  the  complete  unconsciousness  of  the 
destinies  of  Christianity,  manifested  by  writers  before 
the  accession  of  Constantine.  "  That  the  greatest  re- 
ligious change  in  the  history  of  mankind  should  have 
taken  place  under  the  eyes  of  a  brilliant  galaxy  of  philo- 
sophers and  historians  who  were  profoundly  conscious 
of  the  decomposition  around  them ;  that  all  these  writers 
should  have  utterly  failed  to  predict  the  issue  of  the 
movement  they  were  observing,  and  that  during  the 
space  of  three  centuries  they  should  have  treated  as 
simply  contemptible,  an  agency  which  all  men  must 
now  admit  to  have  been,  for  good  or  evil,  the  most 
powerful  moral  lever  that  has  ever  been  applied  to  the 
affairs  of  men,  are  facts  well  worthy  of  meditation  in 
every  period  of  religious  transition."  l 

When  the  mists  with  which  prejudice  and  contro- 
versy have  surrounded  this  remarkable  epoch  in  the 
world's  history  disappear,  it  must  become  clear  to 
science  that  what  we  have  in  reality  to  note  in  the 
events  of  these  early  centuries,  is  not  the  empty  and 
barren  fury  of  controversy  and  fanaticism,  but  the  un- 
controllable vigour  and  energy  of  a  social  movement  of 
the  first  magnitude  in  its  initial  stage.  There  was  no 
suggestion  of  maturity,  or  of  the  vast  consequences 
which  were  inherent  in  the  vital  process  which  was  at 
work.  Scarcely  anything  can  be  distinguished  at  first 
save  the  conception  of  the  supernatural  constitution  of 
society  being  launched  with  enormous  initial  energy, 
and  the  absolute  subordination  of  the  materials  to  the 
constructive  forces  which  were  at  work  amongst  them. 
The  extraordinary  epidemic  of  asceticism,  which  at  the 

1  History  of  European  Morals,  vol.  i.  p.  359. 


126  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

beginning  overran  the  world,  merits  much  more  than  the 
mere  painful  curiosity  with  which  so  many  philosophical 
and  controversial  writers  have  regarded  it.  It  marks  in 
the  most  striking  manner,  not  only  the  strength  of  the 
conception  of  the  supernatural,  but  the  extent  of  that 
spirit  of  utter  self-abnegation  which  had  been  born  into 
the  world,  and  which  was  destined  to  find  its  significant 
social  expression  only  at  a  later  stage. 

The  contrast  which  the  ideals  of  the  time  presented 
when  compared  with  those  of  the  past  is  so  striking 
that  many  writers  of  philosophical  insight  still  altogether 
misunderstand  the  social  significance  of  this  movement ; 
and,  looking  only  upon  that  aspect  which  most  readily 
attracts  notice,  can  scarcely,  even  at  the  present  time, 
bring  themselves  to  speak  tolerantly  of  it.  Says  Mr. 
Lecky,  "  A  hideous,  sordid,  and  emaciated  maniac  with- 
out knowledge,  without  patriotism,  without  natural 
affection,  passing  his  life  in  a  long  routine  of  useless 
and  atrocious  self-torture,  and  quailing  before  the 
ghastly  phantoms  of  his  delirious  brain,  had  become 
the  ideal  of  nations  which  had  known  the  writings  of 
Plato  and  Cicero,  and  the  lives  of  Socrates  and  Cato."1 
But  no  greater  mistake  can  be  made  than  the  common 
one  of  judging  this  development,  and  the  larger  move- 
ment of  which  it  formed  a  phase,  by  contemporaneous 
results.  It'  cannot  be  properly  regarded  from  such 
a  narrow  standpoint.  Its  real  significance  lies  in  the 
striking  evidence  it  affords,  even  at  this  early  stage, 
of  the  unexampled  vigour  of  the  immature  social 
forces  at  work.  The  writer  just  quoted  has  elsewhere 
shown  a  truer  appreciation  of  the  nature  of  these  forces 
in  speaking  of  them  as  those  which  were  subsequently 
to  "  stamp  their  influence  on  every  page  of  legislation, 

1  Hittory  of  European  Morals,  voL  ii.  p.  114. 


vi  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  127 

and  direct  the  whole  course  of  civilisation  for  a  thousand 
years." 

As  the  development  continues  we  note  the  growing- 
organisation  of  the  Church,  the  utter  and  willing  sub- 
ordination of  reason,  the  slow  extinction  of  every  form 
of  independent  judgment,  the  gradual  waning  and,  with 
the  complete  predominance  of  one  of  the  two  conflicting 
factors  in  our  evolution,  the  almost  entire  cessation  of 
every  form  of  intellectual  activity  in  the  presence  of  the 
tremendous  supernatural  ideal  which  held  possession  of 
the  minds  of  men  throughout  the  Western  world. 

We  reach  at  length  the  twelfth  century.  All  move- 
ment, so  far,  has  been  in  one  direction.  Western  Europe 
has  become  a  vast  theocracy.  Implicit  obedience  to 
ecclesiastical  authority,  unquestioning  faith  in  the  ultra- 
rational,  the  criminality  of  doubt  and  of  error,  is  the 
prevailing  note  throughout  every  part  of  the  organisa- 
tion. Human  history  is  without  any  parallel  to  the  life 
of  these  centuries,  or  to  the  state  which  society  had  now 
reached.  The  Church  is  omnipotent;  her  claim  is  to 
supremacy  in  all  things,  temporal  as  well  as  spiritual ; 
emperors  and  kings  hold  their  crowns  from  God  as  her 
vassals ;  the  whole  domain  of  human  activity,  moral, 
social,  political,  and  intellectual,  is  subject  to  her.  All 
the  attainments  of  the  Greek  and  Roman  genius  are 
buried  out  of  sight.  The  triumphs  of  the  ancient  civil- 
isations are  as  though  they  had  never  existed  :  they  are 
not  only  forgotten  ;  there  is  simply  no  organic  continuity 
between  the  old  life  and  that  which  has  replaced  it. 

This  transformation  had  been  no  rapid  and  fitful 
development.  A  period,  longer  by  some  centuries  than 
that  separating  the  present  time  from  the  date  of  the 
Norman  Conquest  of  England,  had  passed  away  ;  and  in 
the  interval  the  characters  of  men  and  every  human 


128  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

institution  had  been  profoundly  modified  by  the  move- 
ment that  had  filled  the  world.  With  the  twelfth  and 
thirteenth  centuries,  as  the  other  factor  in  our  social 
evolution  begins  to  assert  itself,  we  have  the  first  stir- 
rings heralding  the  coming  revolution.  In  the  fifteenth 
century  we  at  length  take  our  stand,  in  the  period  of  the 
Renaissance,  on  the  great  watershed  which  divides  the 
modern  world  from  the  old.  No  one  can  have  caught 
the  spirit  of  the  evolutionary  science  of  the  latter  half  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  who  can  from  this  point  look 
back  over  the  history  of  the  gigantic  movement  which 
absorbed  the  entire  life  of  the  world  for  fourteen 
centuries,  and  then  forward  over  its  history  in  the 
centuries  that  intervene  between  the  Renaissance  and 
our  own  time,  without  realising  the  utter  futility  of 
attempting  to  formulate  the  principles  which  are  working 
themselves  out  in  our  modern  civilisation,  without  taking 
this  religious  movement  into  account.  The  evolutionist 
perceives  that  it,  in  reality,  dwarfs  and  overshadows 
everything  else.  Whatever  we  may,  as  individuals, 
think  of  the  belief  in  which  it  originated,  or  of  the 
principles  upon  which  it  was  founded  and  upon  which 
it  still  exists,  we  are  all  alike  the  product  of  it;  the 
entire  modern  world  is  but  part  of  the  phenomena  con- 
nected with  it.  Science  must,  sooner  or  later,  recognise 
that  in  this  movement  we  have,  under  observation,  the 
seat,  the  actual  vital  centre,  of  that  process  of  organic 
development  which  is  still  unfolding  itself  in  what  is 
called  Western  Civilisation. 

So  far,  fourteen  centuries  of  the  history  of  our  civil- 
isation had  been  devoted  to  the  growth  and  development 
of  a  stupendous  system  of  other-worldliness.  The  con- 
flict against  reason  had  been  successful  to  a  degree  never 
before  equalled  in  the  history  of  the  world.  The  super- 


vi  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  129 

rational  sanction  for  conduct  had  attained  a  strength 
and  universality  unknown  in  the  Koman  and  Greek 
civilisations.  The  state  was  a  divine  institution.  The 
ruler  held  his  place  by  divine  right,  and  every  political 
office  and  all  subsidiary  power  issued  from  him  in  virtue 
of  the  same  authority.  Every  consideration  of  the 
present  was  .overshadowed  in  men's  minds  by  conceptions 
of  a  future  life,  and  the  whole  social  and  political  system 
and  the  individual  lives  of  men  had  become  profoundly 
tinged  with  the  prevailing  ideas.1 

To  ask  at  this  stage  for  the  fruit  of  these  remarkable 
centuries,  and  in  the  absence  thereof  to  speak  of  the  time 
as  one  of  death  and  barrenness,  and  of  the  period  as  the 
most  contemptible  in  history,  is  to*  totally  misunderstand 
the  nature  of  the  movement  we  are  dealing  with.  The 
period  was  barren  only  in  the  sense  that  every  period 
of  vigorous  but  immature  growth  is  barren.  The 
fruit  was  in  the  centuries  to  come.  Science  has  yet 
scarcely  learned  to  look  at  the  question  of  our  social 
evolution  from  any  standpoint  other  than  that  of  the 
rationalism  of  the  individual  ;  whereas,  we  undoubtedly 
have  in  these  centuries  a  period  in  the  lifetime  of  the 
social  organism  when  the  welfare,  not  only  of  isolated 
individuals,  but  of  all  the  individuals  of  a  long  series 
of  generations,  was  sacrificed  to  the  larger  interests  of 
generations  at  a  later  and  more  mature  stage.  As  we 
turn  now  to  the  period  which  intervenes  between  the 
Renaissance  and  our  own  time,  we  have  to  watch  the 
gradual  reassertion  of  the  other  factor  in  our  social 

1  Bluntschli,  in  his  Theory  of  the  State  (translation  published  by 
Clarendon  Press),  well  brings  out,  in  the  tables  showing  the  differences 
between  the  modern,  mediaeval,  and  ancient  state,  the  prevailing  features 
of  the  Mediaeval  Theocracy  in  which  the  authority  of  the  state  was  held 
to  be  derived  from  God,  and  in  which  it  descended  from  the  vicegerent 
through  the  various  subsidiary  authorities  to  whom  it  was  delegated. 

K 


130  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

development.  The  successive  waves  of  revolution,  set 
in  motion  by  the  intellect,  which  follow  each  other 
rapidly  from  the  fourteenth  century  onwards,  have  all 
one  feature  in  common. 

r  The  Christian  religion  possessed  from  the  outset  two 
f  characteristics  destined  to  render  it  an  evolutionary 
'  force  of  the  first  magnitude.  The  first  was  the  extra- 
ordinary strength  of  the  ultra  -  rational  sanction  it 
provided,  which  was  developed  throughout  the  long 
period  we  have  been  considering.  The  second  was  the 
nature  of  the  ethical  system  associated  with  it,  which, 
as  we  shall  see,  was  at  a  later  stage  in  suitable  condi- 
tions calculated  to  raise  the  peoples  coming  under  its 
influence  to  the  highest  state  of  social  efficiency  ever 
attained,  and  to  equip  them  with  most  exceptional 
advantages  in  the  struggle  for  existence  with  other 
peoples. 

Now,  it  will  have  been  evident  from  the  last  chapter, 
if  the  conclusions  there  arrived  at  were  correct,  that  the 
great  problem  with  which  every  progressive  society 
stands  continually  confronted  is :  How  to  retain  the 
highest  operative  ultra  -  rational  sanction  for  those 
onerous  conditions  of  life  which  are  essential  to  its 
progress ;  and  at  one  and  the  same  time  to  allow  the 
freest  play  to  those  intellectual  forces  which,  while 
tending  to  come  into  conflict  with  this  sanction,  con- 
tribute nevertheless  to  raise  to  the  highest  degree  of 
efficiency  the  whole  of  the  members  in  the  struggle  for 
existence.  From  the  fifteenth  century  onwards,  the 
movement  we  watch  in  progress  amongst  the  races  of 
Western  Europe  is  in  this  respect  two-sided.  Hence- 
forward we  have,  on  the  one  hand,  to  note  the  human 
mind  driven  by  forces  set  in  motion  by  itself,  ever 
endeavouring  to  obtain  the  fullest  opportunity  for  the 


vi  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  131 

utilisation  of  those  advantages  with  which  it  was  the 
inherent  function  of  the  ethical  system  upon  which  our 
civilisation  is  founded  to  equip  society.  On  the  other 
hand  we  have  to  watch  in  conflict  with  this  endeavour 
a  profound  instinct  of  social  self-preservation,  ever 
struggling  to  maintain  intact  that  ultra-rational  sanction 
for  social  conduct  with  which  the  life  of  every  social 
system  is  ultimately  united. 

The  first  great  natural  movement,  born  in  due  time, 
of  the  conflict  between  these  two  developmental  tend- 
encies was  that  known  in  history  as  the  Reformation. 
But  to  bring  ourselves  into  a  position  to  appreciate  to 
the  full  the  exceptional  importance,  from  the  evolu- 
tionist's standpoint,  of  the  development  which  has  been 
in  progress  in  our  civilisation  from  the  sixteenth  century 
onwards,  it  is  desirable,  if  possible,  to  get  a  clear  view 
of  those  essential  features  in  which  our  civilisation 
differs  from  all  others. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  in  Chapter  II.  em- 
phasis was  laid  on  the  fact  that  in  the  period  of  the 
Roman-  Empire,  we  had  that  particular  epoch  in  the 
history  of  society,  in  which  a  long-drawn-out  stage  of 
human  evolution  culminated.  In  the  civilisation  there 
developed,  we  had  the  highest  and  most  successful 
expression  ever  reached  of  that  state  of  society,  in 
which  the  struggle  for  existence  is  waged  mainly 
between  communities  organised  against  each  other  on 
a  military  footing.  The  natural  culminating  period  of 
such  a  stage,  was  that  in  which  universal  dominion  was 
obtained,  and  held  for  a  long  period,  by  one  successful 
community. 

It  is  a  curious  feature  of  European  history  that  it 
should  present  to  us  the  clearest  evidence  of  the  survival 
amongst  the  Western  peoples,  down  almost  into  the 


132  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

time  in  which  we  are  living,  of  those  ideals  of  empire 
which  found  their  natural  expression  in  the  ancient 
civilisations.  To  the  period  of  the  Napoleonic  wars,  the 
Roman  ideal  of  empire  and  conquest  can  hardly  be  said  to 
have  been  regarded  by  the  statesmen  or  the  people  of 
any  of  the  nationalities  included  in  the  European  family 
as  other  than  a  perfectly  legitimate  national  aspiration. 
Yet  nothing  can  be  clearer  to  the  evolutionist  when  he 
comes  to  understand  the  nature  of  the  process,  in  pro- 
gress throughout  our  history,  than  that  those  ideals 
have  been  and  are,  quite  foreign  to  our  civilisation. 
They  are  utterly  inconsistent  with  the  tendency  of  the 
development  which  is  proceeding  therein.  Let  us, 
therefore,  in  order  to  understand  the  better  the  nature 
of  the  change  which  is  taking  place  in  our  modern 
societies,  briefly  glance  once  more  at  the  characteristic 
features  of  that  type  of  social  life  which  reached  its 
highest  phase  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

Now,  from  the  beginning  it  may  be  noticed  that 
those  societies  which  existed  under  stress  of  circum- 
stances as  righting  organisations,  presented  everywhere 
certain  strongly -marked  features.  In  their  early  stage 
the  social  relations  may  be  summed  up  briefly.  The 
individual  is  of  little  account ;  the  men  are  the  warriors 
of  the  chief  or  the  state ;  the  women  are  the  slaves  of 
the  men,  and  the  children  are  the  property  of  the 
parents.  Infanticide  is  universal ;  the  society  is  of 
necessity  rudely  communistic  or  socialistic,  and  the 
population  is  kept  within  due  bounds  by  the  simple 
plan  of  killing  off  all  undesirable  accessions  to  it.1  The 
individual  per  se  has  few  rights  "  natural  "  or  acquired  ; 
he  holds  his  property  and  even  his  life  at  the  mercy 

1  Even  in  the  Greek  states   and  amongst   the  Romans,  infanticide 
generally  prevailed,  and  the  act  excited  no  public  reprobation. 


vi  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  133 

of  a  despotism  tempered  only  by  religious  forms  and 
customs. 

The  high  state  of  civilisation  eventually  attained  to 
in  some  of  these  societies,  has  given  rise  to  many 
specious  comparisons  between  them  and  our  modern 
democratic  states.  But  such  comparisons  are  most  mis- 
leading. The  Greek  city  states  were  essentially  military 
units,  each  cherishing  its  own  independence,  and,  as 
a  rule,  seldom  remaining  long  free  from  war  with  its 
neighbours.  They  preserved  unchanged,  down  to  the 
end,  the  leading  characteristics  which  the  Greek  com- 
munities presented  at  the  period  when  history  brings 
us  first  into  contact  with  them.  "  Homer,"  says 
Mr.  MahafFy,  "introduces  us  to  a  very  exclusive  caste, 
society,  in  which  the  key  to  the  comprehension  of  all 
the  details  depends  upon  one  leading  principle — that 
consideration  is  due  to  the  members  of  the  caste  and 
even  to  its  dependents,  but  that  beyond  its  pale,  even 
the  most  deserving  are  of  no  account  save  as  objects  of 
plunder." 1  At  a  later  period  the  independent  organisa- 
tions of  the  city  states  embraced  almost  every  shade 
of  political  constitution.  In  some,  what  was  called  a 
"  pure  democracy  "  held  rule ;  in  others,  power  was  in 
the  hands  of  a  narrow  oligarchy ;  in  others,  it  was  exer- 
cised by  a  ruling  aristocracy ;  in  still  others  it  was  in  the 
hands  of  tyrants.  But  in  all  of  them  the  ruling  classes 
had  a  single  feature  in  common — their  military  origin. 
They  represented  the  party  which  had  imposed  its 
rule  by  force  on  the  rest  of  the  community,  at  best 
at  a  comparatively  remote  period,  at  worst  within 
living  memory.  The  difference  between  the  ruling  class, 
even  in  an  aristocracy  and  a  democracy,  was,  as  Professor 
Freeman  has  remarked,  simply  that  in  one  case  the 

1  Social  Life  in  Greece,  by  J.  P.  Mahaffy,  p.  44. 


134  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

legislative  power  and  eligibility  to  high  office  was 
extended  to  the  whole,  and  in  the  other  confined  to  a 
part,  of  a  class  of  hereditary  burghers.  "  In  no  case 
did  it  extend  beyond  that  class ;  in  no  case  could  the 
freedman,  the  foreigner,  or  even  the  dependent  ally, 
obtain  citizenship  by  residence,  or  even  by  birth  in 
the  land.  He  who  was  not  the  descendant  of  citizen 
ancestors,  could  be  enfranchised  only  by  special  decree 
of  the  sovereign  assembly."1  Even  in  Athens,  the 
citizen  "looked  down  upon  the  vulgar  herd  of  slaves, 
freedmen,  and  unqualified  residents,  much  as  his  own 
plebeian  fathers  had  been  looked  down  upon  by  the  old 
Eupatrides  in  the  days  before  Kleisthene"s  and  Solon."8 
As  for  any  conception  of  duty  or  responsibility  to  others 
outside  the  community,  it  did  not  exist.  Morality 
was  of  the  narrowest  and  most  egotistical  kind.  It 
never,  among  the  Greeks,  embraced  any  conception  of 
humanity ;  no  Greek,  says  George  Henry  Lewes,  ever 
attained  to  the  sublimity  of  such  a  point  of  view.8 

This  feature  of  a  large  excluded  class  with  a  basis  of 
slavery  beneath  the  whole  political  fabric  must  never 
be  lost  sight  of  in  these  ancient  military  societies. 
The  Greek  writers  seemed,  indeed,  to  be  unable  to 
imagine  a  condition  of  social  organisation  in  which 
there  should  not  be  either  a  large  excluded  class,  or 
slaves  or  barbarians,  to  relieve  the  ruling  class  of 
what  they  considered  the  menial  and  inferior  duties  of 
existence.4 

1  History  of  Federal  Government  (Greek  Federations),  voL  L  chap.  ii. 

8  Ibid. 

8  History  of  Philosophy,  vol.  L  p.  408. 

4  Professor  Freeman  held  this  to  be  the  really  weak  point  of  Greek 
Democracy.  "The  real  special  weakness  of  pure  Democracy  is  that  it 
almost  seems  to  require  slavery  as  a  necessary  condition  of  its  existence. 
It  is  hard  to  conceive  that  a  large  body  of  men,  like  the  qualified  citizen? 
of  Athens,  can  ever  give  so  large  a  portion  of  their  time,  as  the  Athenians 


vi  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  135 

In  the  Eoman  Empire  again  we  have  only  the 
highest  example  of  the  military  state.  Ancient  Home, 
as  already  noticed,  was  a  small  city  state  which  at- 
tained the  position  it  eventually  occupied  in  the  world 
by  a  process  of  natural  selection,  its  career  from  the 
beginning  being  a  record  of  incessant  fighting,  in 
which  at  several  points  its  very  existence  seemed  to 
be  at  stake.  In  the  Eoman  Empire,  as  in  the  Greek 
states,  an  immense  proportion  of  the  population 
were  slaves  without  rights  of  any  kind.  Gibbon 
calculated  that  in  the  time  of  Claudius  the  slaves 
were  at  least  equal  in  numbers  to  the  free  inhabitants 
in  the  entire  Roman  world.1  The  highest  ambition 
amongst  the  leading  citizens  in  the  remainder  of  the 
Roman  population  was  to  serve  the  state  in  a  military 
capacity,  and  to  bring  about  the  subjugation  of  other 
states  and  peoples.  Universal  conquest  was  the  recog- 
nised and  unquestioned  policy  of  the  state.  The 
subjugation  of  rivals  implied  something  very  different 
from  what  we  have  come  to  understand  by  the  term  :  it 
meant  compelling  other  peoples  to  pour  their  tribute 
into  Rome.  The  national  policy  was  in  reality  but  the 
organised  exploitation  by  force  and  violence  of  weaker 
peoples.  Trade  and  commerce  as  we  know  them  were 
unknown  to  the  Romans,  and  they  could  not  have  at- 
tained any  large  development  under  such  an  organisa- 
tion of  society.  Such  agriculture  and  manufactures  as 
existed  were  carried  on  mainly  by  slaves,  and  occupations 
connected  with  them  were  regarded  as  unworthy  of  free 
men.  The  higher  classes  in  Rome  looked  with  contempt 

did,  to  the  business  of  ruling  and  judging,  without  the  existence  of  an 
inferior  class  to  relieve  them  from  at  least  the  lowest  and  most  menial 
duties  of  their  several  callings.  Slavery,  therefore,  is  commonly  taken  for 
granted  by  Greek  political  thinkers." 

1   Vide  chap.  ii.  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire. 


130  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

upon  trade  of  any  kind,  and  passed  laws  forbidding  their 
members  to  engage  therein.  It  was  the  same  even  in 
the  freest  of  the  Greek  democracies.  One  of  the  leading 
features  of  Attic  culture,  says  Mr.  Mahaffy,  "was  the 
contempt  of  trade  or  indeed  of  any  occupation  which 
so  absorbed  a  man  as  to  deprive  him  of  ample  leisure. 
Though  architects  were  men  of  great  position,  and 
obtained  large  fees,  yet  in  Plato's  Gorgias  we  have  so 
intellectual  a  trade  as  that  of  an  engineer  despised  ;  and 
in  Aristotle's  Politics  (p.  1340)  we  find  the  philosopher, 
with  deeper  wisdom,  censuring  the  habit  of  aiming  at 
perfection  in  instrumental  music  as  lowering  to  the 
mind,  and  turning  the  free  gentleman  into  a  slavish 
handicraftsman."  Possibly,  he  continues,  "we  may 
have  this  feeling  rather  strongly  represented  by  aristo- 
cratic writers  like  Plato  and  Aristophanes,  who  felt  hurt 
at  tradesmen  coming  forward  prominently  in  politics,; 
but  the  tone  of  Athenian  life  is  too  marked  in  this 
respect  to  let  us  mistake  the  fact."1  The  free  men  of 
Rome  could  hardly  be  said  to  work ;  they  fought  or 
lived  on  the  produce  of  fighting.  The  rich  and  their 
dependents  had  obtained  their  wealth  or  their  positions 
directly  or  indirectly  through  the  incessant  wars ;  the 
rest  during  a  prolonged  period  lived  on  the  corn  sent 
as  tribute  to  Rome  and  distributed  by  public  demand 
amongst  the  citizens. 

As  might  have  been  expected  in  a  military  com- 
munity of  the  kind,  the  relationship  of  the  individual 
to   the    state    was   one    of   complete    subordination- 
individual  freedom  as  against  the  state  was  unknown. 
/Religion  lent  its  aid  to  ennoble  the  duty  of  the  individual 
I  to  a  military  society  rather  than  to  his  fellows,  and  all 
\  its  authority,  like  all  the  best  ability  of  the  community, 

1  Social  Life  in  Greece,  by  J.  P.  Mahaffy,  chap.  ix. 


vi  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  137 

was  pressed  into  the  immediate  service  of  a  military 
organisation.  The  military  virtues  were  predominant; 
the  priesthood  was  a  political  office ;  patriotism  occupied 
a  position  in  public  estimation  which  it  is  difficult 
nowadays  to  realise.  Cicero  but  gave  expression  in  its 
best  form  to  the  spirit  which  pervaded  the  whole  fabric 
of  the  ancient  state,  when  he  asserted  that  no  man  could 
lay  claim  to  the  title  of  good  who  would  hesitate  to  die 
for  his  country ;  and  that  the  love  owed  thereto  by  the 
citizen  was  holier  and  more  profound  than  that  due 
from  him  to  his  nearest  kinsman. 

Now  what  we  have  to  notice  in  such  states  is  that 
as  they  all  originated  in  successful  military  enterprise, 
it  always  happened  that  relatively  small  communities  or 
organisations,  having  at  the  beginning  obtained  power 
and  extended  their  influence  over  other  peoples,  the 
members  of  these  original  castes  thenceforward  regarded 
themselves  as  distinct  ruling  classes  within  the  social 
organisation.  They  secured  to  themselves  special  privi- 
leges, and  were  considered  superior  to  the  great  majority 
of  their  fellows,  whom  they  forthwith  thrust  out  as  an 
inferior  class  apart.  These  latter,  with  the  immense 
number  of  slaves  continually  being  made  in  war  and  by 
other  means,  constituted  the  foundation  upon  which  the 
social  fabric  rested.  The  inevitable  tendency  of  successful 
military  enterprise  to  concentrate  power  in  the  hands 
of  a  few  did  not  act  to  check  the  organisation  of  society 
in  the  direction  in  which  it  was  thus  set  from  the 
beginning,  but  served  to  continually  strengthen  the 
position  of  the  ruling  classes.  The  evolutionary  forces 
which  we  shall  have  to  observe  at  work  amongst  our- 
selves, and  affecting  to  such  an  extraordinary  degree 
the  further  development  of  society,  could  not  operate 
to  any  extent  in  such  communities.  The  great  mass  of 


138  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

the  people,  under  the  sway  of  restrictive  laws  invented 
by  these  military  oligarchies  in  their  own  interests, 
/were  artificially  penned  off  beyond  the  reach  of  such 
forces,  and  so  came  in  time  to  accept  their  reputed 
inferiority,  their  restricted  rights,  w.d  their  oppressed 
condition,  as  part  of  the  natural  or  .er  of  things. 

Progress  was,  therefore,  strictly  limited  in  the  mili- 
tary state.  All  the  outward  magnificence  which  was 
attained  by  the  Koman  Empire  at  the  period  of  its 
maximum  development  was,  in  effect,  but  the  result 
of  the  most  ruthless  centralisation,  the  most  direct  and 
impoverishing  exploitation,  and  the  most  unbridled 
individual  and  class  aggrandisement  at  the  expense  of 
immense  oppressed  populations,  largely  comprised  of 
slaves.  Mr.  Frederic  Harrison  has  recently  attempted,  in 
an  eloquent  passage,  to  describe  what  Rome  must  have 
looked  like  some  seventeen  or  eighteen  hundred  years  ago 
when  viewed  from  the  tower  of  the  Capitol,1  and  the 
picture  is  helpful  and  suggestive  in  enabling  us  to 
realise  more  vividly  the  nature  of  that  social  type  which 
culminated  in  the  empire.  "  This  earth,"  he  concludes, 
"  has  never  seen  before  or  since  so  prodigious  an  accumula- 
tion of  all  that  is  beautiful  and  rare.  The  quarries  of 
the  world  had  been  emptied  to  find  precious  marbles. 
Forests  of  exquisite  columns  met  the  gaze,  porphyry, 
purple  and  green,  polished  granite,  streaked  marbles  in 
the  hues  of  a  tropical  bird,  yellow,  orange,  rosy,  and 
carnation,  ten  thousand  statues,  groups  of  colossi  of 
dazzling  Parian  or  of  golden  bronze,  the  work  of  Greek 
genius,  of  myriads  of  slaves,  of  unlimited  wealth  and 
absolute  command.  Power  so  colossal,  centralisation  so 
ruthless,  luxury  so  frantic,  the  world  had  never  seen, 
and,  we  trust,  can  never  see  again." 

1  Vide  Fortnightly  Revise,  No.  cccxvii,  New  Series. 


vi  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  139 

There  are  two  leading  questions  which  now  present 
themselves.  First,  What  is  the  real  significance  of 
that  developmental  process  at  work  in  our  modern 
societies  which  is  carrying  us  so  far  away  from  that 
social  type  we  have  outlined  before  us  in  :he  Greek 
States  and  the  Roman  Empire  ?  Second,  What  is 
the  nature  of  the  evolutionary  force  which  has  thus 
so  completely  changed  the  current  of  social  develop- 
ment among  those  who  are  now  the  leading  peoples 
of  the  world  ? 

We  have  already,  in  Chapter  II.,  referred  to  that 
movement  of  modern  societies  noticed  by  Sir  Henry 
Maine,  the  effect  of  which  has  been  to  gradually  sub- 
stitute the  individual  for  the  group  as  the  unit  of 
which  our  civil  laws  take  account.  Now  this  pro- 
gress towards  individual  liberty,  which  is  known  to 
the  student  of  jurisprudence  as  the  movement  from 
status  to  contract,  and  which  has  thus,  as  it  were, 
become  registered  in  our  laws,  has  a  deeper  mean- 
ing than  at  first  sight  appears.  Closely  regarding, 
as  a  whole,  the  process  of  change  which  has  been 
going  on  in  our  Western  civilisation,  the  evolutionist 
begins  to  perceive  that  it  essentially  consists  in 
the  slow  breaking-up  of  that  military  type  of  society 
which  reached  its  highest  development  in,  although  it 
did  not  disappear  with,  the  Roman  Empire.  Through- 
out the  history  of  the  Western  peoples  there  is 
one  central  fact  which  underlies  all  the  shifting  scenes 
which  move  across  the  pages  of  the  historian.  The 
political  history  of  the  centuries  so  far  may  be  summed 
up  in  a  single  sentence :  fit  is  the  story  of  the  political 
and  the  social  enfranchisement  of  the  masses  of  the 
people  hitherto  universally  excluded  from  participation 
in  the  rivalry  of  existence  on  terms  of  equality.  ^  This 


140  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP, 

change,  it  is  seen,  is  being  accomplished  against  the 
most  prolonged  and  determined  resistance  at  many 
points,  and  under  innumerable  forms  of  the  power- 
holding  classes  which  obtained  under  an  earlier  constitu- 
tion of  society  the  influence  which  they  have  hitherto, 
to  a  large  extent,  although  in  gradually  diminishing 
measure,  continued  to  enjoy.  The  point  at  which 
the  process  tends  to  culminate  is  a  condition  of  society 
in  which  the  whole  mass  of  the  excluded  people  will 
be  at  last  brought  into  the  rivalry  of  existence  on  a 
footing  of  equality  of  opportunity. 

The  steps  in  this  process  have  been  slow  to  a  degree, 
but  the  development  has  never  been  interrupted,  and  it 
probably  will  not  be  until  it  has  reached  that  point 
up  to  which  it  has  always  been  the  inherent  tend- 
ency of  the  principle  of  our  civilisation  to  carry  it. 
The  first  great  stage  in  the  advance  was  accom- 
plished when  slavery,  for  the  first  time  in  history,  be- 
came extinct  in  Europe  somewhere  about  the  fourteenth 
century.  From  this  point  onward  the  development 
has  continued  under  many  forms  amongst  the  peoples 
included  in  our  civilisation — locally  accelerated  or  re- 
tarded by  various  causes,  but  always  in  progress. 
Amongst  all  the  Western  peoples  there  has  been  a  slow 
but  sure  restriction  of  the  absolute  power  possessed 
under  military  rule  by  the  head  of  the  state.  The  gradual 
decay  of  feudalism  has  been  accompanied  by  the  trans- 
fer of  a  large  part  of  the  rights,  considerably  modified, 
of  the  feudal  lords  to  the  landowning,  and  later  to 
the  capitalist  classes  which  succeeded  them.  But  we 
find  these  rights  undergoing  a  continuous  process  of 
restriction,  as  the  classes  which  inherited  them  have 
been  compelled  to  extend  political  power  in  ever- 
increasing  measure  to  those  immediately  below.  As  the 


vi  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  141 

rights  and  power  of  the  upper  classes  have  been  gradu- 
ally curtailed,  the  great  slowly-formed  middle  class  has, 
in  its  turn,  found  itself  confronted  with  the  same 
developmental  tendency.  Wider  and  wider  the  circle 
of  political  influence  has  gradually  extended.  Whether 
the  progress  has  been  made  irregularly  amid  the  throes 
of  revolution,  or  more  regularly  in  the  orderly  course  of 
continuous  legislative  enactment,  it  has  never  ceased. 
The  nineteenth  century  alone  has  witnessed  an  enormous 
extension  of  political  power  to  the  masses  amongst  most 
of  the  advanced  peoples  included  in  our  civilisation. 

/  In  England  the  list  of  measures,  aiming  either  directly 
or  indirectly  at  the  emancipation  and  the  raising  of  the 
lower  classes  of  the  people,  that  have  been  placed  on 
the  statute-book  in  the  lifetime  of  even  the  present 
generation,  is  an  imposing  one,  and  it  continues  yearly 
to  be  added  to.  Last  of  all  it  may  be  perceived  that  in 
our  own  day,  amid  all  the  conflict  of  rival  parties,  and 
all  the  noise  and  exaggeration  of  heated  combatants,  we 
are  definitely  entering  on  a  stage  when  the  advancing 
party  is  coming  to  set  clearly  before  it,  as  the  object  of 

/  endeavour,  the  ideal  of  a  state  of  society  in  which  there 
shall  be  at  last  no  law-protected  power-holding  class  on 
the  one  side,  and  no  excluded  and  disinherited  masses 
on  the  other — a  stage  in  which,  for  a  long  period  to 
come,  legislation  will  aim  at  securing  to  all  the 
members  of  the  community  the  right  to  be  admitted 
to  the  rivalry  of  life,  as  far  as  possible,  on  a  footing 
of  equality  of  opportunity. 

As  the  evolutionist  ponders  on  this  process  of 
development,  its  immense  significance  is  gradually 
perceived.  He  observes  that  it  is  only  our  familiarity 
with  the  process  which  obscures  from  us  the  fact  that 
it  is  absolutely  unique  in  the  history  of  the  race.  Its 


142  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP 

inherent  tendency  he  sees  must  be  not  to  suspend  the 
rivalry  of  life,  but  to  raise  it  to  the  highest  possible 
degree  of  efficiency  as  a  cause  of  progress.  So  far 
from  our  civilisation  tending  to  produce  an  interrup- 
tion of  or  an  exception  to,  the  cosmic  process  which 
has  been  in  progress  from  the  beginning  of  life,  its 
distinctive  and  characteristic  feature,  he  observes,  must 
be  found  in  the  exceptional  degree  to  which  it  has 
furthered  it.  The  significance  of  the  entire  order  of 
social  change  in  progress  amongst  the  Western  peoples, 
consists,  in  short,  in  the  single  fact  that  this  cosmic 
process  tends  thereby  to  obtain  amongst  us  the  fullest, 
highest,  and  completest  expression  it  has  ever  reached 
in  the  history  of  the  race. 

It  has  been  noticed  that  in  that  state  of  society 
which  flourished  under  the  military  empires,  the  ex- 
tent to  which  progress  could  be  made  was  strictly 
limited.  In  a  social  order  comprising  a  series  of 
hereditarily  distinct  groups  or  classes,  and  resting 
ultimately  on  a  broad  basis  of  slavery,  the  great 
majority  of  the  people  were  penned  off  apart,  and  ex-/| 
eluded  from  all  opportunity  of  developing  their  own 
personalities.  Those  forces  which  have  created  the 
modern  world  could,  therefore,  have  little  opportunity 
for  action  or  for  development.  In  Eastern  countries, 
where  the  institution  of  caste  still  prevails,  we  have, 
indeed,  only  an  example  of  a  condition  of  society  in 
which  (in  the  absence  of  that  developmental  force 
which  we  shall  have  to  observe  at  work  amongst  our- 
selves) these  groups  and  classes  have  become  fixed 
and  rigid,  and  in  which,  consequently,  progress  has 
been  thwarted  and  impeded  at  every  turn  by  in- 
numerable barriers  which  have  for  ages  prevented  that 
free  conflict  of  forces  within  the  community  which  has 


vi  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  143 

made    so  powerfully  for  progress  among  the  Western 
peoples.1 

When  we  follow  the  process  of  development  gradu- 
ally proceeding  throughout  European  history,  we  can 
be  in  no  doubt  as  to  its  character.  We  see  that 
the  energies  of  men,  instead  of  being,  as  in  the 
earlier  societies,  either  stifled  altogether,  or  absorbed 
in  the  service  of  the  state  to  be  utilised  largely 
in  the  exploitation  of  other  peoples  by  violence, 
have  continually  tended  to  find  a  freer  outlet.  But  the 
process,  we  observe,  has  been  accompanied  by  a  steady 
increase  of  energy,  enterprise,  and  activity  amongst  the 
peoples  most  affected.  As  the  movement  which  is 
bringing  the  excluded  masses  of  the  people  into  the 
competition  of  life  on  a  footing  of  equality  has  con- 
tinued, its  tendency,  while  humanising  the  conditions, 
has  unmistakably  been  to  develop  in  intensity,  and  to 
raise  in  efficiency  the  rivalry  in  which,  as  the  first  con- 
dition of  progress,  we  are  all  engaged.  As  the  oppor- 
tunity has  been  more  and  more  fully  secured  to  the 
individual  to  follow  without  restraint  of  class,  privilege, 
or  birth  wherever  his  capacity  or  abilities  lead  him,  so 
also  have  all  those  features  of  vigorous  enterprise, 

1  Castes  had  their  place  and  meaning  in  an  earlier  stage  of  social 
evolution ;  they  were  an  inevitable  incident  accompanying  a  certain  stage 
of  military  expansion.  Probably,  as  Professor  Marshall  has  remarked,  the 
feature  was  at  the  time  probably  well  suited  to  its  environment,  as  "in 
early  times  ...  all  the  nations  which  were  leading  the  van  of  the 
world's  progress  were  found  to  agree  in  having  adopted  a  more  or  less 
strict  system  of  caste."  "  One  peculiarity  invariably  distinguishes  the 
infancy  of  societies,"  remarks  Sir  Henry  Maine.  "  Men  are  regarded  and 
treated,  not  as  individuals,  but  always  as  members  of  a  particular  group. 
Everybody  is  first  a  citizen,  and  then,  as  a  citizen,  he  is  a  member  of  his 
order, — of  an  aristocracy  or  a  democracy,  of  an  order  of  patricians  or  of 
plebeians  ;  or,  in  those  societies  which  an  unhappy  fate  has  afflicted  with  a 
special  perversion  in  their  course  of  development,  of  a  caste  ;  next  he  is  a 
member  of  a  gens,  house,  or  clan ;  and  lastly,  he  is  a  member  of  his 
family." — Ancient  Law,  p.  13? 


144  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

indomitable  energy,  and  restless  activity  which  dis- 
tinguish the  leading  branches  of  the  European  peoples 
become  more  marked.  As  the  rivalry  has  become  freer 
and  fairer,  the  stress  has  become  greater  and  the  results 
more  striking.  All  those  remarkable  features  of  the 
modern  world  which  impress  the  imagination,  which 
serve  to  distinguish  our  times  so  effectively  from  the 
past,  and  which  have  to  a  large  extent  contributed  to 
place  the  European  peoples  outside  the  fear  of  rivalry 
from  any  other  section  of  the  race  are,  in  effect,  but  the 
result  of  those  strenuous  conditions  of  life  which  have 
accompanied  the  free  play  of  forces  in  the  community, 
this  latter  being  in  its  turn  the  direct  product  of  the 
movement  which  is  bringing  the  masses  of  the  people 
into  the  rivalry  of  existence  on  conditions  of  equality. 

It  may  be  perceived,  in  short,  that  the  character- 
istic process  of  development,  which  is  carrying  us  so 
far  away  from  that  social  type  which  reached  its  highest 
expression  in  the  ancient  civilisations,  is  only  another 
phase  of  that  process  already  noticed,  which  has  been 
throughout  history  gradually  shifting  the  seat  of  power 
northwards  into  regions  where  the  struggle  for  existence 
is  severest.  In  the  process  of  social  expansion  which 
the  Western  races  are  undergoing,  they  are  being  worked 
up  to  a  high  state  of  efficiency  in  the  rivalry  of  life. 
The  resulting  energy,  activity,  vigour,  and  enterprise  of 
the  peoples  most  deeply  affected  by  this  process  has 
given  them  the  commanding  place  they  have  come  to 
occupy  in  the  world.  It  is  in  the  extent  to  which  it 
has  contributed  to  further  this  development  and  to 
increase  the  stress  of  life  that  we  must  recognise  the 
significance  of  that  broadening  down  throughout  the 
centuries  of  individual  liberty,  observable  alike  in  our 
laws,  our  political  institutions,  and  our  social  and 


vi  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  145 

domestic  relations.  It  is  as  an  aspect  of  this  develop- 
ment that  we  must  regard  the  importance  of  that 
progress  towards  economic  freedom,  which  political 
economists  are  coming  to  look  upon  as  characteristic  of 
modern  times.1  And  it  is  as  a  necessary  accompaniment 
of  the  same  development  that  we  must  recognise  the 
significance  of  that  movement  which,  having  at  length 
almost  completed  the  political  enfranchisement  of  the 
masses,  has  in  our  own  day,  amid  much  misconception 
and  misapprehension,  already  begun  their  social  emanci- 
pation. 

So  far  we  have  attempted  to  answer  the  question 
as  to  the  significance  in  the  eyes  of  the  evolutionist  of 
that  developmental  process  in  progress  in  our  civilisa- 
tion. To  answer  the  question  as  to  what  is  the  nature 
of  the  evolutionary  force  which  has  been  behind  it,  we 
must  now  return  to  the  consideration  of  the  unfolding 
of  that  organic  process  of  development  which  has  its 
seat  in  the  ethical  system  upon  which  our  civilisation 
is  founded. 

1  Vide  Professor  Marshall's  Principle!  of  Economic*,  voL  i  p.  8. 


CHAPTER  VII 
WESTERN  CIVILISATION — (continued) 

IT  is  not  improbable,  after  the  sanguine  expectations 
which  have  been  entertained  throughout  the  greater 
part  of  the  nineteenth  century,  as  to  the  part  which 
the  intellect  is  destined  to  play  in  human  evolution, 
that  one  of  the  most  remarkable  features  of  the  age 
upon  which  we  are  entering  will  be  the  disillusionment 
we  are  likely  to  undergo  in  this  respect.  There  has 
been  for  long  abroad  in  the  minds  of  men,  an  idea, 
which  finds  constant  expression  (although  it  is  not 
perhaps  always  clearly  and  consistently  held)  that 
this  vast  development  in  the  direction  of  individual, 
economic,  political,  and  social  enfranchisement  which  has 
been  taking  place  in  our  civilisation,  is  essentially  an 
intellectual  movement.  Nothing  can  be  more  obvious, 
however,  as  soon  as  we  begin  to  understand  the  nature 
of  the  process  of  evolution  in  progress  around  us, 
than  that  the  moving  force  behind  it  is  not  the  intellect, 
and  that  the  development  as  a  whole  is  not  in  any 
true  sense  an  intellectual  movement.  Nay  more,  we 
may  distinguish,  with  some  degree  of  clearness,  the 
nature  of  the  part  taken  therein  by  the  intellect.  It 
is  an  important  part  certainly,  but  it  is  also  beyond 
doubt  a  subordinate  one,  strictly  limited  and  circum- 


CHAP,  vii  WESTERN  CIVILISA  TION  147 

scribed.  The  intellect  is  employed  in  developing  ground 
which  has  been  won  for  it  by  other  forces.  But  it 
would  appear  that  it  has  by  itself  no  power  to  occupy 
this  ground ;  it  has  not  even  any  power  to  continue 
to  hold  it  after  it  has  been  won  when  these  forces 
have  spent  and  exhausted  themselves. 

We  have  seen  that  to  obtain  a  just  conception  of 
our  Western  civilisation,  it  is  necessary  to  regard  it 
from  the  beginning  as  a  single  continuous  growth,  en- 
dowed with  a  definite  principle  of  life,  subject  to  law, 
and  passing,  like  any  other  organism,  through  certain 
orderly  stages  of  development.  If  we  look  back  once 
more  over  that  ethical  movement  which  we  have  re- 
garded as  the  seat  of  the  vital  phenomena  we  are  witness- 
ing, and  which  projects  itself  with  such  force  and 
distinctness  through  the  history  of  the  European  peoples, 
it  may  be  perceived  that  it  is  divided  into  two  clearly- 
defined  stages.  In  the  preceding  chapter  our  attention 
was  confined  exclusively  to  the  first  of  these  stages. 
The  second  stage  began  with  the  Renaissance,  or, 
more  accurately  speaking,  with  the  Reformation,  and 
it  continues  down  into  the  period  in  which  we  are 
living. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  in  the  last  chapter  it  was 
insisted  that  the  dominant  and  determinative  feature  of 
the  first  period  was  the  development  of  an  ultra-rational 
sanction  for  the  constitution  of  society ;  which  sanction 
attained,  in  the  European  Theocracy  of  the  fourteenth 
century,  a  strength  and  influence  never  before  known. 
All  the  extraordinary  series  of  phenomena  peculiar  to 
the  centuries  which  have  become  known  as  "  the  ages 
of  faith "  are  in  this  light  to  be  regarded,  it  was 
maintained,  as  constituting  the  early  and  immature 
aspects  of  a  movement  endowed  from  the  beginning  with 


£48  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

enormous  vital  energy.  The  process,  as  a  whole,  was 
to  reach  fruition  only  at  a  later  stage.  In  the  second 
period,  as  the  other  factor  in  our  evolution  begins 
slowly  to  operate,  we  see  the  revolutionary  and  trans- 
forming forces  which  from  the  outset  constituted  the 
characteristic  element  in  the  religious  system  upon  which 
our  civilisation  is  founded,  but  which  during  the  period 
of  growth  were  diverted  into  other  channels,  now  finding 
their  true  social  expression.  We  witness  in  this  period 
the  beginning,  and  follow  through  the  centuries  the 
progress,  of  a  social  revolution  unequalled  in  magnitude 
and  absolutely  unique  in  character,  a  revolution  the 
significance  of  which  is  perceived  to  lie,  not,  as  is  often 
supposed,  in  its  tendency  to  bring  about  a  condition 
of  society  in  which  the  laws  of  previous  development 
are  to  be  suspended  ;  but  in  the  fact  that  it  constitutes 
the  last  orderly  stage  in  the  same  cosmic  process 
which  has  been  in  progress  in  the  world  from  the 
beginning  of  life.  Let  us  see  if  we  can  explain  the 
nature  of  the  force  that  has  been  behind  this  revolution, 
and  the  manner  in  which  it  has  operated  in  producing 
that  process  of  social  development  which  the  Western 
peoples  are  still  undergoing. 

If  the  mind  is  carried  backwards  and  concentrated  on 
the  first  period  of  the  religious  movement  which  began  in 
the  early  centuries  of  our  era,  it  will  be  noticed  that 
there  was  one  feature  which  stood  out  with  great 
prominence.  It  is  a  matter  beyond  question  that  this 
movement  involved  from  its  inception  the  very  highest 
conception  of  the  Altruistic  ideal  to  which  the  human 
mind  has  in  any  general  sense  ever  attained.  At  this 
distance  of  time  this  characteristic  is  still  unmistakable. 
"  Any  impartial  observer,"  says  Mr.  Lecky,  "  would 
describe  the  most  distinctive  virtue  referred  to  in  the 


WESTERN  CIVILISATION 


New  Testament  as  love,  charity,  or  philanthropy." 1  It 
is  the  spirit  of  charity,  pity,  and  infinite  compassion 
which  breathes  through  the  gospels.  The  new  religion 
was,  at  the  outset,  actually  and  without  any  figurative 
exaggeration  what  the  same  writer  has  called  it  else- 
where, "  a  proclamation  of  the  universal  brotherhood  of 
man."  We  note  how  it  was  this  feature  which  impressed 
the  minds  of  men  at  first.  The  noble  system  of  ethics, 
the  affection  which  the  members  bore  to  each  other, 
the  devotion  of  all  to  the  corporate  welfare,  the  spirit  of 
infinite  tolerance  for  every  weakness  and  inequality,  the 
consequent  tendency  to  the  dissolution  of  social  and  class 
barriers  of  every  kind,  beginning  with  those  between 
slave  and  master,  and  the  presence  everywhere  of  the 
feeling  of  actual  brotherhood,  were  the  outward  features 
of  all  the  early  Christian  societies. 

Now  it  seems  at  first  sight  a  remarkable  fact,  even  at 
the  present  day,  that  the  adherents  of  a  form  of  belief 
apparently  so  benevolent  and  exemplary  should  have 
been  at  an  early  stage  in  the  history  of  the  movement 
subjected  to  the  persecutions  which  they  had  to  endure 
under  the  Eoman  Empire.  It  is  not,  in  fact,  surprising 
that  many  writers  should  have  followed  Gibbon,  in 
search  of  a  satisfactory  explanation,  into  an  elaborate 
analysis  of  the  causes  that  led  the  Roman  state,  which 
elsewhere  exercised  so  contemptuous  a  tolerance  for  the 
religions  of  the  peoples  whom  it  ruled,  to  have  under- 
taken the  rigorous  measures  which  it  from  time  to  time 
endeavoured  to  enforce  against  the  adherents  of  the 
new  movement.  "  If,"  says  Gibbon,  "  we  recollect  the 
universal  toleration  of  Polytheism,  as  it  was  invariably 
maintained  by  the  faith  of  the  people,  the  incredulity  of 
the  philosophers,  and  the  policy  of  the  Roman  senate 

1  History  of  European  Morals,  vol.  ii.  p.  130. 


ISO  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

and  emperors,  we  are  at  a  loss  to  discover  what  new 
offence  the  Christians  had  committed,  what  new  provoca- 
tion could  exasperate  the  mild  indifference  of  antiquity, 
and  what  new  motives  could  urge  the  Roman  princes 
who  beheld  without  concern  a  thousand  forms  of  religion 
subsisting  in  peace  under  their  gentle  sway,  to  inflict  a 
severe  punishment  on  any  part  of  their  subjects  who  had 
chosen  for  themselves  a  singular  but  an  inoffensive  mode 
of  faith  and  worship.  The  religious  policy  of  the  ancient 
world  seems  to  have  assumed  a  more  stern  and  intolerant 
character  to  oppose  the  progress  of  Christianity." l 

A  peculiar  feature  of  the  persecutions  under  the 
Roman  Empire  was  that  they  were  not  to  any  extent 
originated  by  the  official  classes.  Particular  emperors 
or  magistrates  may  have  used  for  their  own  purposes  the 
prejudices  which  existed  in  the  popular  mind  against  the 
new  sect ;  but  these  prejudices  were  already  widespread 
and  general.  The  enlightened  classes  were,  indeed, 
rather  puzzled  than  otherwise  at  the  deep-seated  feelings 
which  they  found  in  existence  against  the  adherents  of 
the  movement.  They,  for  the  most  part,  knew  very 
little,  and  scarcely  troubled  to  inquire,  about  the  real 
nature  of  the  new  doctrines.  Even  Tacitus  saw  in  the 
Christians  only  a  sect  peculiar  for  their  hatred  of 
humankind,  who  were,  in  consequence,  branded  with 
deserved  infamy ;  while  Pliny  was  content  with  assert- 
ing that  whatever  might  be  the  principle  of  their 
conduct,  their  unyielding  obstinacy  was  deserving  of 
punishment. 

What  it  is,  however,  of  the  highest  importance 
to  note  here  is  that  it  was  those  same  altruistic 
ideals,  which  seem  so  altogether  exemplary  in  our 
eyes,  that  filled  the  minds  of  the  lower  classes  of  the 

1  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire,  vol.  i.  chap.  xvL 


vii  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  151 

Roman  population  (who  were  not  permeated  with  the 
intellectual  scepticism  of  the  educated  classes)  with 
vague  but  deep-seated  distrust  and  hatred  of  the  new 
religion  and  its  adherents.  The  profound  social  instincts 
of  the  masses  of  the  people — then,  as  nearly  always, 
possessing  a  truer  scientific  basis  than  the  merely  in- 
tellectual insight  of  the  educated  classes — recognised,  in 
fact,  in  the  new  ideals  which  were  moving  the  minds 
of  men,  a  force  not  only  different  in  nature  and  poten- 
tiality to  any  of  which  the  ancient  world  had  previous 
experience,  but  one  which  was  fundamentally  antagonistic 
to  the  forces  which  had  hitherto  held  together  that  or- 
ganisation of  society  which  had  culminated  in  the  Empire. 

Hence  it  was  that  this  popular  feeling  found  ex- 
pression in  accusations,  many  of  which  appear  so 
strange  to  us.  The  adherents  of  the  new  faith  were 
accused,  not  only  of  dissolving  the  sacred  laws  of  custom 
and  education  and  of  abhorring  the  gods  of  others,  but 
of  "  undermining  the  religious  constitution  of  the 
empire,"  of  being  "  a  society  of  atheists,  without 
patriotism,"  who  obstinately  refused  to  hold  communion 
with  the  gods  of  Rome,  of  the  empire,  and  of  mankind. 
The  populace  of  the  ancient  world,  in  fact,  rightly  re- 
garded as  a  public  danger  the  adherents  of  a  religion, 
in  the  altruistic  conceptions  of  which  all  the  bonds  of 
race,  nationality,  and  class  were  dissolved ;  and  treated 
them  consequently  as  outcasts  to  be  branded  with  in- 
famy by  all  men,  of  whatever  creed  or  nationality,  in  a 
world  where  the  universal  constitution  of  society  had 
hitherto  been  that  which  had  found  its  highest  expres- 
sion in  the  epoch  in  which  men  were  living. 

We  must  keep  clearly  in  mind,  therefore,  that  it  was 
the  nature  of  the  altruistic  ideals  of  the  new  religion 
which  from  the  beginning  differentiated  it  in  so  marked 


152  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP 

a  manner  from  all  other  faiths ;  and  that  while  it  was 
this  characteristic  which  formed  one  of  the  most  powerful 
causes  of  its  spread  and  influence,  it  was  also  the  feature 
which  was  instinctively  recognised  as  constituting  a 
danger  to  the  universal  social  order  of  the  ancient 
world,  and  which  caused  the  religion  to  be  early  singled 
out  for  the  exceptional  treatment  it  received  at  the 
hands  of  the  Roman  state. 

As  the  movement  progressed  it  must  be  noticed 
that  the  altruistic  ideals  which  thus,  from  the  outset, 
formed  the  distinctive  feature  of  the  new  faith  were 
not  extinguished,  but  that,  in  the  period  of  intense 
vitality  which  ensued,  they  became,  as  the  religious 
principle  developed,  overshadowed  by,  and  merged  in, 
the  supernatural  conceptions  with  which  they  were 
necessarily  associated.  In  the  epidemic  of  asceticism 
which  overspread  the  world,  every  consideration  of  the 
present  became  dominated  by  conceptions  of  another 
life;  but  in  these  conceptions  we  still  perceive  that 
self-abnegation  and  self-sacrifice  in  this  life  were  held 
to  be  the  proper  preparation  for  the  next,  and  that  they 
constituted  the  very  highest  ideal  of  acceptable  conduct 
the  world  could  then  comprehend.  As  the  ascetic  period 
was  succeeded  by  the  monastic  period,  there  is  no 
essential  distinction  to  be  made ;  for  in  the  latter  we 
have  only  the  organised  expression  of  the  former. 
Throughout  all  this  prolonged  period  we  have  to  note 
that  self-sacrifice  and  the  un worthiness  of  every  effort 
and  ambition  centred  in  self  or  in  this  life  was  the  ideal 
the  Church  consistently  held  before  the  minds  of  men. 
Nor  was  this  the  standard  of  the  cloister  only ;  through- 
out every  section  of  the  European  Theocracy  the  minds 
and  lives  of  men  were  profoundly  imbued  with  the 
spirit  of  this  teaching.  Whatever  may  have  been  the 


vn  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  153 

faults  and  excesses  of  the  Church,  there  can  be  no 
question  as  to  the  tendency  of  its  doctrine  to  exalt 
the  altruistic  ideal ;  and,  either  directly  or  indirectly, 
to  raise  the  conduct  prescribed  by  it  to  the  highest  level 
of  human  reverence  it  had  ever  reached.  At  a  time  when 
the  military  organisation  of  society  still  outwardly  re- 
tained a  scarcely  diminished  influence  over  the  Western 
mind,  the  act  which  became  typical  of  the  higher  life 
was  to  wash  the  feet  of  social  inferiors  and  beggars.  At 
a  period  when  the  history  of  the  ancient  empires  still 
formed  a  kind  of  lustrous  background,  in  the  light  of 
which  the  deeds  of  men  continually  tended  to  be  judged, 
the  typical  vision  of  the  Church  was  always  of  the  knight 

Who,  in  many  climes  and  without  avail, 
Had  spent  his  life  for  the  Holy  Grail ; 

but  w  ho  found  it  at  last  in  the  cup  and  the  crust  which 
he  shar  ed  with  the  outcast  leper.  In  an  age  of  turbulence 
and  war,  and  while  force  continued  to  be  everywhere 
triumph  ant,  the  uncompromising  doctrine  of  the  innate 
equality  of  men  was  slowly  producing  the  most  pregnant 
and  remarkable  change  that  has  ever  passed  over  the 
minds  of  a  large  section  of  the  race.  Even  the  all- 
powerful  ruling  classes  could  not  remain  permanently 
unaffected  by  a  voice  which,  taking  them  generation 
after  generation  in  their  triumphs  and  pleasures  as  well 
as  in  their  most  impressionable  moments,  whispered 
with  all  the  weight  of  the  most  absolute  and  un- 
questioned authority  that  they  were  in  reality  of  the 
same  clay  as  other  men,  and  that  in  the  eyes  of  a  higher 
Power  they  stood  on  a  footing  of  native  equality  with 
even  th  e  lowest  of  the  earth. 

We  now  come  to  the  beginning  of  the  second  stage 
which  is  reached  in  the  great  social  movement  known 


154  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

in  history  as  the  Kefonnation.  The  importance  of 
this  movement,  as  we  shall  better  understand  later,  is 
very  great,  much  greater  indeed  than  the  historian, 
with  the  methods  at  his  command,  has  hitherto 
assigned  to  it.  Its  immediate  significance  was,  that 
while,  as  already  explained,  it  represented  an  en- 
deavour to  preserve  intact  the  necessary  super-rational 
sanction  for  the  ethical  ideals  of  the  Christian  religion, 
it  denoted  the  tendency  of  the  movement  which  had 
so  far  filled  the  life  of  the  Western  peoples  to  find 
its  social  expression.  It  liberated,  as  it  were,  into 
the  practical  life  of  the  peoples  affected  by  it,  that 
immense  body  of  altruistic  feeling  which  had  been 
from  the  beginning  the  distinctive  social  product  of 
the  Christian  religion,  but  which  had  hitherto  been, 
during  a  period  of  immaturity  and  intense  vitality, 
directed  into  other  channels.  To  the  evolutionist  this 
movement  is  essentially  a  social  development.  It  took 
place  inevitably  and  naturally  at  a  particular  stage  which 
can  never  recur  in  the  life  of  the  social  organism. 
In  his  eyes  -its  significance  consists  in  the  greater 
development  which  the  altruistic  feelings  must  attain 
amongst  the  peoples  where  the  development  was  allowed 
to  proceed  uninterrupted  in  its  course.  It  is,  it  would 
appear,  amongst  these  peoples  that  the  great  social  re- 
volution which  our  civilisation  is  destined  to  accomplish 
must  proceed  by  the  most  orderly  stages,  must  find  its 
truest  expression,  and  must  produce  its  most  notable 
results. 

Before  following  the  subject  further,  let  us,  however, 
first  see  what  is  the  real  function  in  the  evolution  we 
are  undergoing  of  this  great  body  of  humanitarian  feel- 
ing which  distinguishes  our  time ;  for  there  is  scarcely 
any  other  subject  connected  with  the  progress  we  are 


vii  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  155 

making  upon  which  so  much  misconception  appears 
to  prevail.  So  far  from  the  doctrine  of  evolution 
having  shed  light  thereon,  it  has,  apparently,  in  some 
respects  only  deepened  the  darkness,  so  that  we  have, 
from  time  to  time,  authoritative  voices  raised  amongst 
us  to  assert,  what  can  hardly  be  possible,  namely,  that 
the  most  important  result  of  the  development  which 
the  humanitarian  feelings  have  attained  is  to  largely 
secure  at  the  present  day  the  survival  of  the  unfittest 
in  society. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  one  of  the  most  marked 
features  of  our  times  is  the  development,  which  has 
taken  place,  of  the  feelings  that,  classed  together  under 
the  head  of  altruistic,  represent  in  the  abstract  that 
willingness  to  sacrifice  individual  welfare  in  the  cause 
of  the  welfare  of  others.  Yet  there  are  probably  few 
students  of  social  progress  familiar  with  the  explanations 
currently  given  as  to  the  function  of  these  feelings  in 
our  modern  civilisation  who  have  not  felt  at  one  time 
or  another  that  such  explanations  are  to  a  considerable 
extent  unsatisfactory.  The  functions  assigned  to  the 
feelings  are  simply  not  sufficiently  important  to  account 
for  the  magnitude  of  the  phenomenon  we  are  regarding. 
We  seem  to  feel  that  there  must  be  some  larger  process 
of  evolution  behind,  the  nature  of  which  remains 
unexplained,  but  which  should  serve  to  group  together, 
as  the  details  of  a  single  movement,  all  the  extraordinary 
phenomena  connected  with  the  humanitarian  feelings 
which  the  modern  world  presents. 

It  is,  of  course,  easy  to  understand  the  explanations 
currently  given  of  the  part  which  the  altruistic  feelings 
have  played  in  a  stage  of  development  anterior  to  our 
own.  Their  function  in  the  type  of  civilisation  which 
culminated  in  the  Roman  Empire  is  clear  enough ;  the 


1 56  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

devotion  of  the  individual  to  the  corporate  welfare  was 
one  of  the  first  essentials  of  success  in  societies  which 
existed  primarily  for  military  purposes,  where  the 
struggle  for  existence  was  carried  on  mainly  between 
organised  bodies  of  men.  We  had,  accordingly,  in  this 
stage  of  society  an  extreme  sense  of  devotion  to  clan 
or  country.  Sentiment,  education,  and  religion  all  lent 
their  aid  to  ennoble  the  idea  of  absolute  self-sacrificing 
devotion  to  the  state;  so  that  virtue  amongst  the 
ancients  seemed  always  to  be  indissolubly  associated 
with  the  idea  of  patriotism  in  some  form. 

But,  although  we  live  in  an  age  in  which  the 
altruistic  feelings  have  attained  a  development  pre- 
viously unexampled  in  the  history  of  the  race,  the  con- 
ditions under  which  they  exercised  so  important  a 
function  at  an  earlier  stage  seem  to  be  slowly  disappear- 
ing. Patriotism,  not  of  the  modern  kind,  but  of  the 
type  which  prevailed  during  the  Roman  period,  has 
long  been  decaying  amongst  us,  and  the  tendency  of 
the  present  time  undoubtedly  points  in  the  direction 
of  a  continuous  decline  in  the  strength  of  this  feeling. 
Again,  our  civilisation  would  appear,  at  first  sight,  to 
be  distinctly  unfavourable  to  the  cultivation  of  the 
altruistic  feelings,  or  to  their  utilisation  as  a  develop- 
mental force.  From  time  to  time,  as  already  mentioned, 
we  are  even  informed  that  the  teaching  of  Darwinian 
science  is  that  these  feelings  are  actually  injurious  to 
society,  and  that  in  their  operation  now  they  tend 
largely  to  promote  amongst  us  the  survival  of  the  un- 
fittest.  We  have  seen  how,  in  some  respects,  the 
tendency  of  progress  from  ancient  to  modern  societies 
has  apparently  been  to  promote  individual  selfishness, 
a  leading  feature  of  this  progress  having  been  the  change 
in  the  base  from  which  the  struggle  for  existence  takes 


vii  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  157 

place,  so  that  it  has  come  to  be  waged  less  and  less 
between  the  societies,  and  more  and  more  between  the 
individuals  comprising  them.  We  have  observed  also 
how  the  emancipation  of  the  individual,  enabling  him  to 
utilise  to  the  fullest  advantage  in  a  free  rivalry  with  his 
fellows,  every  ability  with  which  he  has  been  endowed, 
has  been  the  object  of  all  modern  legislation ;  and  we 
have  had  to  note  that  the  ideal  towards  which  all  the 
advanced  nations  are  apparently  travelling  is  a  state  of 
society  in  which  every  individual  shall,  without  disad- 
vantage in  respect  of  birth,  privilege,  or  position,  start 
fair  in  this  rivalry,  and  obtain  the  fullest  possible 
development  of  his  own  personality. 

All  this,  it  would  appear,  must  tend  to  exalt  the 
individual's  regard  for  himself,  and  must  denote  an 
accompanying  tendency  to  weaken  rather  than  to 
strengthen  the  altruistic  feelings.  Attention  is  indeed 
not  infrequently  directed  to  this  feature  by  a  certain 
class  of  writers  who  profess  to  view  it  with  apprehension 
and  alarm,  and  individual  and  class  selfishness  is  not 
infrequently  spoken  of  as  the  great  evil  of  the  age  which 
casts  an  ominous  shadow  over  the  future. 

Yet,  making  due  allowance  for  all  these  con- 
siderations, we  are,  nevertheless,  met  by  the  fact  that 
there  undoubtedly  has  been  a  great  development  of  the 
humanitarian  feelings  amongst  us.  The  strengthening 
and  deepening  which  they  have  undergone,  has  also  all 
the  appearance  of  being  one  of  the  vital  processes  in 
progress  in  our  civilisation.  No  student  of  European 
history  can  fail  to  observe  that  throughout  the  whole 
period  there  has  been  a  gradual  but  continuous  growth 
of  these  feelings  amongst  the  Western  races ;  that  they 
have  reached  their  highest  development  in  the  period 
in  which  we  are  living ;  and  that  this  development, 


158  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

and  the  change  in  character  which  has  accompanied  it, 
has  proceeded  furthest  amongst  the  most  advanced  races. 

The  nature  and  meaning  of  the  process  which  is 
going  on  appears  to  be  little  understood,  even  by 
writers  of  authority.  The  confusion  of  ideas  to  which 
the  tendencies  of  the  time  give  rise  finds  remarkable 
expression  in  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer's  writings.  In  the 
Data  of  Ethics,  the  author,  in  attempting  to  reconcile 
the  undoubted  tendency  to  the  development  of  the 
altruistic  feelings  in  our  civilisation  on  the  one  hand, 
with  the  equally  undoubted  tendency  to  the  develop- 
ment of  the  individualistic  feelings  on  the  other, 
presents  the  curious  spectacle  of  providing  one  party 
with  a  set  of  arguments  in  favour  of  socialism,  and  an- 
other party  with  an  equally  good  set  of  arguments  in 
favour  of  individualism ;  while  he  has  himself  pictured 
the  reconciliation  of  the  two  tendencies  in  a  future 
society  which  the  Darwinian,  it  must  be  confessed, 
can  only  imagine  as  existing  in  a  state  of  progressive 
degeneration.1 

What  then  is  the  significance  of  the  extraordinary 
development  which  the  humanitarian  feelings  are  attain- 
ing in  our  civilisation  ?  The  evidences  as  to  the  extent 
of  this  development  are  remarkable.  The  growth  of 
benevolent  institutions  is  a  characteristic  of  the  age, 
and,  although  it  is  not  as  convincing  as  other  evidence,  it 

1  See,  in  particular,  chapters  xiii.  and  xiv.  of  his  Data  of  Ethics.  Mr. 
Spencer  recognises  clearly  "  that  social  evolution  has  been  bringing  about 
a  state  in  which  the  claims  of  the  individual  to  the  proceeds  of  his 
activities,  and  to  such  satisfactions  as  they  bring  are  more  and  more 
positively  asserted."  The  other  tendency  is  equally  unmistakable.  "  If 
we  consider  what  is  meant  by  the  surrender  of  power  to  the  masses,  the 
abolition  of  class  privileges,  the  efforts  to  diffuse  knowledge,  the  agitations 
to  spread  temperance,  the  multitudinous  philanthropic  societies,  it  becomes 
clear  that  regard  for  the  wellbeing  of  others  is  increasing  pari  passu  with 
the  taking  of  means  to  secure  personal  wellbeing  "  (chap,  xiii.) 


vii  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  159 

is  a  very  striking  feature.  England,  the  United  States, 
and  other  countries,  are  overspread  with  a  network  of 
institutions  founded  or  supported  by  the  contributions 
of  private  individuals.  The  annual  revenue  of  the 
private  charities  of  London  alone  is  close  on  £5, 000, 000, 
or  equal  to  the  entire  public  revenue  of  some  of  the 
smaller  states.  Associations  and  corporations  for  giving 
effect  to  philanthropic  purposes  are  innumerable,  and 
scarcely  a  week  passes  that  fresh  additions  are  not  made 
to  their  number.  It  is  to  a  large  extent  the  same  in 
other  countries  included  in  our  Western  civilisation, 
and  appearances  would  seem  to  indicate  that  the  most 
progressive  societies  are  not  behind  the  others  in  this 
respect,  but  that,  on  the  contrary,  they  have  made  most 
advance  in  this  direction  also. 

Still,  it  is  not  these  results,  noteworthy  though  they 
be,  which  furnish  the  most  important  evidence  as  to  the 
development  which  the  altruistic  feelings  have  attained 
in  our  time.  This  is  to  be  marked  more  particularly  in 
a  widespread  interest  in  the  welfare  of  others,  which 
exhibits  itself  in  a  variety  of  less  obtrusive  forms.  There 
may  be  noticed  in  particular  the  extraordinary  sensitive- 
ness of  the  public  mind  amongst  the  advanced  peoples 
to  wrong  or  suffering  of  any  kind.  One  of  the  strongest 
influences  prompting  the  efforts  which  the  British 
nation  has  persistently  (although  quite  thanklessly  and 
unobtrusively)  made  towards  the  suppression  of  the 
slave  trade,  has  been  the  impression  produced  by 
accounts  of  the  cruelties  and  degradation  imposed  on 
the  slaves.  In  like  manner  the  effect  produced  on  the 
minds  of  the  British  people  by  descriptions  of  the 
wrongs  and  sufferings  of  oppressed  nationalities  has 
been  one  of  the  most  powerful  influences  affecting  the 
foreign  policy  of  England  throughout  the  nineteenth 


160  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

century ;  and  any  close  student  of  our  politics  during 
this  period  would  have  to  note  that  this  influence,  so 
far  as  the  will  of  the  people  found  expression  through 
the  government  in  power,  has  been  a  far  more  potent 
factor  in  shaping  that  policy  than  any  clear  conception 
of  those  far-reaching  political  motives  so  often  attributed 
to  the  British  nation  by  other  countries. 

Evidence  still  more  conclusive,  although  of  a  differ- 
ent kind,  is  to  be  found  in  that  mirror  of  our  daily  life 
which  the  press  furnishes.  No  one  can  closely  follow 
from  day  to  day  that  living  record,  so  faithfully 
reflecting  the  feelings  and  opinions  of  the  period, 
without  becoming  profoundly  conscious  of  the  strength 
and  importance  of  the  altruistic  feelings  at  the  present 
time.  Appeals  in  respect  of  injury,  outrage,  or  wrong 
suffered  by  any  particular  class  have  become  one  of 
the  strongest  political  forces,  and  may  sometimes 
be  observed  to  be  more  effective  than  even  direct 
appeals  to  private  selfishness.  We  may  notice  too, 
that  when,  from  time  to  time  in  the  daily  life  of  the 
people,  the  feelings  to  which  such  appeals  are  made 
become  focussed  on  individual  cases,  the  habits  of 
restraint  acquired  under  free  institutions  are  often 
insufficient  to  prevent  the  humanitarian  impulses  from 
overmastering  those  habits  of  sober  judgment  so 
readily  exercised  in  other  circumstances  by  large  masses 
of  the  people. 

In  smaller  but  not  less  important  matters  the  in- 
dications are  equally  striking.  The  record  in  the  press 
of  a  case  of  death  from  starvation  sends  a  tremor 
which  may  almost  be  felt  through  the  community.  It 
is  not  that  the  sensitiveness  of  the  public  mind  in 
such  cases  is  shown  by  noisy  denunciation  ;  it  is  those 
hesitating  heart  -  searching  comments  —  frequently  so 


vii  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  161 

pathetically  misdirected  —  which  the  circumstance 
oftenest  evokes,  that  are  so  eloquent  and  so  significant. 
We  have  become,  too,  not  only  sensitive  to  physical 
suffering,  but  to  the  mental  suffering  which  the  moral 
degradation  of  our  fellows  implies.  One  of  the  most 
remarkable  movements  of  the  period,  in  some  respects, 
has  been  the  agitation  successfully  carried  on  in  Eng- 
land against  the  laws  requiring  the  state  regulation 
of  vice ;  and  one  of  the  leading  factors  which  gave 
strength  to  this  agitation,  and  which  tended  to  render 
it  eventually  successful,  was  undoubtedly  the  feeling  of 
abhorrence  produced  in  the  minds  of  a  large  section  of 
the  public  by  the  degradation  which  these  laws  publicly 
imposed  on  a  section  of  our  fellow-creatures. 

Moreover,  this  extreme  sensitiveness  to  misery  or 
suffering  in  others  appears  to  be  extending  outwards  in 
a  gradually  widening  circle.  We  do  not  allow  un- 
merited suffering  to  be  imposed  even  on  animals ;  bear- 
baiting,  dog-fighting,  badger-baiting,  cock-fighting,  have 
one  after  another  disappeared  from  amongst  us  within 
recent  times,  suppressed  by  public  sentiment  rather 
than  by  law.  The  action  of  these  feelings  may  also  be 
traced  more  or  less  directly  in  many  of  the  movements 
peculiar  to  our  time.  The  opinion  in  favour  of 
vegetarianism  has  drawn  its  strength,  to  a  consider- 
able extent,  from  the  feeling  of  repugnance  which  the 
idea  of  the  infliction  of  death  or  suffering  on  the  animals 
which  provide  us  with  food  inspires  in  many  minds. 
The  century  has  seen  the  rise  of  the  well-known  and 
successful  British  Society  for  the  Prevention  of  Cruelty 
to  Animals ;  and  similar  associations  have  been  founded 
and  have  taken  toot  all  over  the  English-speaking 
world,  and  to  some  extent  elsewhere.  We  have  even 
to  note  how  the  same  feelings  have,  within  the  lifetime 

M 


1 62  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

of  the  present  generation,  proved  sufficiently  strong  in 
England  to  secure  the  passing  of  a  law  against  vivi- 
section, forbidding  (except  in  duly  authorised  cases  and 
under  certain  restrictions),  the  infliction  of  suffering 
upon  animals  even  in  the  cause  of  science ;  and,  what 
is  perhaps  more  remarkable,  we  have  seen  public 
opinion  moved,  as  it  often  is,  by  an  instinct  sounder 
than  the  arguments  used  in  support  of  it,  insisting  on  the 
strict  enforcement  of  this  law  in  the  face  of  authori- 
tative protests  which  have  been  made  against  it.1 

The  contrast  which  all  this  presents  to  the  utter 
indifference  to  suffering  which  prevailed  amongst  the 
ancients,  and  which  survived,  to  some  extent,  among 
ourselves  down  to  a  comparatively  recent  date,  is  very 
striking.  Amongst  the  early  Greeks  and  Eomans  the 
utmost  callousness  and  brutality  were  displayed  towards 
persons  outside  the  ties  of  relationship  or  dependency. 

1  The  arguments  which  have  been  used  on  both  sides  of  this  question 
have  a  special  interest,  inasmuch  as  they  serve  to  bring  out  in  a  striking 
light  that  general  absence,  already  remarked  upon,  of  any  clear  conception 
as  to  what  the  function  of  the  altruistic  feelings  really  is.  The  opponents 
of  vivisection  have  hitherto  largely  based  their  case  on  the  peculiar 
ground  of  the  alleged  absence  of  any  considerable  benefit  to  medical 
science  from  the  practice.  The  advocates  of  vivisection  on  the  other 
hand  have  based  their  case  on  the  equally  precarious  ground  that,  be- 
cause the  benefits  to  medical  science  have  been  large,  obstacles  should  not 
be  placed  in  the  way  of  vivisection.  It  is  evident,  however,  that  neitLer 
side  touches  what  is  the  real  question  at  issue.  If  society  is  asked  to 
permit  vivisection,  the  only  question  it  has  to  decide  is,  whether  the 
benefits  it  may  receive  from  the  practice  through  the  furtherance  of 
medical  science  (even  admitting  them  to  be  considerable),  outweigh  the 
injury  it  may  receive  through  the  weakening  of  the  altruistic  feelings 
which  it  tends  to  outrage.  The  reason,  however,  why  the  question  is 
not  usually  put  thus  directly  and  simply  in  the  controversial  literature 
which  this  subject  so  plentifully  provokes,  is,  apparently,  that  we  have 
no  clear  apprehension  as  to  what  the  real  function  of  the  altruistic  feel- 
ings is.  Their  immense  importance  is  accordingly  justified  by  instinct 
rather  than  by  reason,  and  consequently  such  justification  comes  almost 
exclusively  from  that  section  of  the  population  where  the  social  instincts 
are  healthiest 


vii  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  163 

We  can  hardly  realise  the  brutal  selfishness  which 
prevailed  even  within  those  ties.  Infanticide  was  a 
general  practice.  Even  old  age  was  not,  as  a  rule, 
respected  amongst  the  Greeks.  Says  Mr.  Mahaffy, 
"the  most  enlightened  Greeks  stood  nearer,  I  fear,  to 
the  savages  of  the  present  day,  who  regard  without 
respect  or  affection  every  human  being  who  has  become 
useless  in  the  race  of  life  or  who  even  impedes  the 
course  of  human  affairs.  We  know  that  at  Athens 
actions  of  children  to  deprive  their  parents  of  control 
of  property  were  legal  and  commonly  occurring,  nor 
do  we  hear  that  medical  evidence  of  imbecility  was 
required.  It  was  only  among  a  few  conservative  cities 
like  Sparta,  and  a  few  exceptionally  refined  men  like 
Plato,  that  the  nobler  and  kindlier  sentiment  prevailed."1 
Compared  with  ours  even  the  noblest  Greek  ethics  were 
of  the  narrowest  kind ;  and  Greek  morality,  as  already 
observed,  at  no  period  embraced  any  conception  of 
humanity. 

Finally,  we  have  to  remark  that  there  is  no  justifica- 
tion for  regarding  the  change  in  progress  in  our  time,  as 
indicating  that  we  are  undergoing  a  kind  of  deteriora- 
tion, or  as  evidence  that  we  are  becoming  effeminate  and 
less  able  to  bear  the  stress  of  life  than  formerly.  There 
are  no  real  grounds  for  such  a  supposition.  We  show 
no  signs  of  effeminacy  in  other  respects.  On  the  con- 
trary it  is  amongst  the  peoples  who  are  most  vigorous 
and  virile,  and  amongst  whom  the  stress  is  severest, 
that  the  change  is  most  noticeable.  It  is  amongst  the 
races  that  are  winning  the  greatest  ascendency  in  the 
arorld  that  this  softening  process  has  proceeded  furthest. 
The  phenomenon  of  the  development  of  the  altruistic 
feelings  presents  well-marked  features;  it  has  been 

1  Social  Life  in  Greece,  by  J.  P.  Mahaffy,  chap.  v. 


164  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

persistent  and  continuous  throughout  a  prolonged  period; 
it  has  progressed  furthest  amongst  the  most  advanced 
peoples ;  and  it  has  all  the  appearance  of  being  closely 
associated  in  some  way  with  the  progress  we  are  making 
in  other  directions.  What  then,  it  may  be  asked,  is  the 
import  of  this  development  ?  What  is  the  function  of 
the  humanitarian  feelings  in  that  process  of  expansion 
which  is  peculiar  to  our  civilisation  ?  In  what  lies  the 
significance  of  that  deepening  and  softening  of  char- 
acter which  has  long  been  in  progress  amongst  the 
Western  peoples  ? 

At  the  risk  of  repetition,  it  is  essential  to  once  more 
briefly  revert  to  the  distinguishing  features  of  that 
social  transformation  which  has  been  slowly  taking 
place  in  our  Western  civilisation.  The  clue  to  this 
process  we  found  to  lie  in  the  fact  that  it  has  consisted 
essentially  in  the  gradual  breaking  down  of  that  military 
organisation  of  society  which  had  previously  prevailed, 
and  in  the  emancipation  and  enfranchisement  of  the 
great  body  of  the  people  hitherto  universally  excluded 
under  that  constitution  of  society  from  all  participation 
on  equal  terms  in  the  rivalry  of  existence.  From  a 
remote  time  down  into  the  period  in  which  we  are  living, 
we  have  witnessed  a  continuous  movement  in  this 
direction.  The  progress  may  not  have  been  always 
visible  to  the  current  generation  amongst  whom  the 
rising  waves  surge  backwards  and  forwards  ;  but,  look- 
ing back  over  our  history,  we  mark  unmistakably  the 
unceasing  onward  progress  of  the  slowly -advancing 
tide.  This  movement  we  have  seen  resulting  in  that 
free  play  of  forces  within  the  community  which  has  pro- 
duced the  modern  world.  And  it  tends  to  culminate  in  a 
condition  of  society  in  which  there  shall  be  no  privileged 
classes,  and  in  which  all  the  excluded  people  shall  be  at 


vii  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  165 


last  brought  into  the  rivalry  of  life   on   a   footing   of 
equality  of  opportunity — the  significance  of  the  whole 
process  consisting  in  its  tendency  to  raise  the  rivalry  of 
existence  to  the  highest  degree  of  efficiency  as  a  cause  of 
progress  to  which  it  has  ever  attained  in  the  history  of  life. 
Now  the  prevailing  impression  concerning  this  pro- 
cess of  evolution,  is  that  it  has  been  the  product  of  an 
intellectual  movement,  and  that  it  has  been  the  ever- 
increasing  intelligence  and  enlightenment  of  the  people 
which  has  constituted  the  principal  propelling  force.     It 
would  appear,  however,  that  we  must  reject  this  view. 
From  the  nature  of  the  case  the  intellect  could  not  have 
supplied  any  force  sufficiently  powerful  to  have  enabled 
the  people  to  have  successfully  assailed  the  almost  im- 
pregnable position  of  the  power-holding  classes.      So 
enormous  has  been  the  resistance  to  be  overcome,  and 
so  complete  has  been  the  failure  of  the  people  in  similar 
circumstances  outside   our   civilisation,  that   we   must 
look  elsewhere  for  the  cause  which  has  produced  the 
transformation.     The  motive  force  we  must  apparently 
find  in  the  immense  fund  of  altruistic  feeling  with  which 
our  Western  societies  have  become  equipped ;  this  being, 
with  the  extraordinarily  effective  sanctions  behind  it, 
the   characteristic   and   determinative   product    of   the 
religious  system  upon  which  our  civilisation  is  founded. 
It  is  the  disintegrating  influence  of  this  fund  of  altruism 
in  our  civilisation  that  has  undermined  the  position  of 
the  power-holding  classes.     It  is  the  resulting  deepen- 
ing   and    softening   of    character    amongst    us   which 
alone  has  made  possible  that  developmental  movement 
whereby  all  the  people  are  being  slowly  brought  into 
the  rivalry  of  life  on  equal  conditions.      And  in  the 
eyes  of   the    evolutionist,   it    is    by   contributing    the 
factor    which    has    rendered    this    unique    process    of 


i66  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

social  development  possible,  that  the  Christian  religion 
has  tended  to  raise  the  peoples  affected  by  it  to  the 
commanding  place  they  have  come  to  occupy  in  th'.> 
world.  Let  us  see  how  this  remarkable  development 
has  proceeded. 

The  first  great  epoch  in  the  history  of  this  process 
was  that  which  marked  the  extinction  of  slavery.  TV.re 
is  scarcely  any  one  feature  of  our  modern  civilisation  of 
greater  significance  to  the  evolutionist  than  the  absence 
of  this  institution.  The  abolition  of  slavery  has  been 
one  of  the  greatest  strides  forward  ever  taken  by  the 
race.  The  consequences,  direct  and  indirect,  have  been 
immense,  and  even  now  we  habitually  under-rate  rather 
than  over -rate  its  effects  and  importance.  Slavery 
became  extinct  in  Europe  about  the  fourteenth  century, 
but  had  the  institution  continued  after  the  break-up  of 
the  Roman  Empire,  modern  civilisation  would  never 
have  been  born ;  we  should  still  be  living  in  a  world 
with  the  fetters  of  militancy  hopelessly  riveted  upon  us ; 
social  freedom  and  equality  would  be  unknown  ;  trade, 
commerce,  and  manufactures,  as  they  now  exist,  could 
not  have  been  developed,  and  the  few  engaged  in  such 
occupations  would  have  been  despised.  The  friction 
of  mind  against  mind  which  has  produced  modern  science 
and  its  multifarious  applications  to  the  needs  of  life 
would  never  have  arisen  ;  industrialism  would  have  been 
unknown ;  and  the  degrading  and  retarding  influences  of 
a  rule  of  brute  force  would  have  been  felt  in  every 
department  of  life. 

Yet,  although  it  is  difficult  to  realise  it  in  the  midst 
of  our  civilisation,  slavery  is  one  of  the  most  natural 
and,  from  many  points  of  view,  one  of  the  most  reason- 
able of  institutions.  Professor  Freeman  regarded  it 
almost  as  a  necessary  condition  of  a  pure  democracy  of 


vii  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  167 

the  Greek  type,  in  which  the  individual  free  citizen  was 
"  educated,  worked  up,  and  improved  to  the  highest 
possible  pitch."1  What  may  be  called  the  intellectual 
case  against  slavery  has  nearly  always  run  on  the  same 
lines.  From  this  point  of  view  it  is  capable  of  the 
clearest  proof  that  slavery  is  hurtful  in  the  long-run  to 
the  welfare  of  the  people  amongst  whom  it  prevails. 
But  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  such  arguments  have 
never  been  of  the  slightest  practical  importance  ;  for,  as 
already  maintained  elsewhere,  men  in  such  circumstances 
are  everywhere  dominated,  not  by  calculations  of  the 
supposed  effects  of  their  acts  or  their  institutions  on 
unborn  generations,  but  by  more  immediate  considerations 
of  their  own  personal  advantage.  It  must  be  remembered 
also  that  the  tendency  of  intellectual  progress  must 
always  be  to  make  it  clear  that  under  all  the  forms  of 
the  highest  civilisation,  the  process  tending  to  the 
survival  of  the  fittest,  and  the  worsting  of  the  least 
efficient,  goes  on  as  surely  and  as  steadily  as  under  any 
other  system  of  social  organisation.  The  intellect  alone 
can,  in  such  circumstances,  never  be  expected  to  furnish 
any  strong  condemnation  of  those  who,  knowing  them- 
selves to  be  the  stronger  and  more  efficient,  and  feeling 
their  interest  in  the  conditions  of  existence  to  be  bounded 
by  the  limited  span  of  individual  human  life,  should  take 
this  short  and  direct  road  and  utilise  the  superiority 
with  which  they  have  been  equipped  to  their  own 
immediate  advantage,  rather  than  to  that  of  unknown 
and  unborn  generations. 

In  dealing  with  inferior  races  when  removed  from 
the  environment  of  Western  civilisation,  it  has,  indeed, 
been  the  consistent  experience  of  all  European  peoples 
that  the  influence  of  inherited  conceptions,  and  of 

1  Vide  History  of  Federalism,  vol.  i.  chap.  ii. 


168  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

centuries  of  training,  has  not  been  sufficient  to  keep  in 
check  this  feeling  as  to  the  inherent  naturalness  of 
slavery.  We  must  not  forget  that  the  institution  has 
flourished  down  almost  into  our  own  times  under  the 
auspices  of,  and  in  the  midst  of  an  Anglo-Saxon  com- 
munity in  the  Southern  States  of  the  North  American 
continent;  and  the  subsequent  painful  history  of  the 
negro  question  in  the  United  States  only  brings  out  in 
strong  light  the  strength  and  even  reasonableness  of 
the  feeling  upon  which  slavery  was  founded — always, 
of  course,  restricting  our  view  to  the  immediate  local 
interests  of  the  stronger  of  the  two  parties  envisaged. 

We  are  apt  to  consider  the  abolition  of  slavery 
as  the  result  of  an  intellectual  movement.  But  he 
would  be  a  bold  man  who,  with  a  clear  apprehension 
of  the  forces  that  have  been  at  work,  would  undertake 
to  prove  that  slavery  was  abolished  through  the  march 
of  the  intellect.  It  is  not  held  in  check  even  at  the 
present  time  by  forces  set  in  motion  by  the  intellect 
Its  extinction  is,  undoubtedly,  to  be  regarded  as  one  of 
the  first  of  the  peculiar  fruits  of  that  ethical  movement 
upon  which  our  civilisation  is  founded.  The  two 
doctrines  which  contributed  most  to  producing  the 
extinction  of  slavery  were  the  doctrine  of  salvation  and 
the  doctrine  of  the  equality  of  all  men  before  the  Deity 
— both  being  essentially  ultra-rational.  The  doctrine  of 
salvation,  in  particular,  proved  at  an  early  stage  to  be 
one  of  the  most  powerful  solvents  ever  applied  to  the 
minds  of  men.  The  immense  and  incalculable  importance 
that  the  welfare  of  even  the  meanest  creature  acquired 
for  his  soul's  sake  possessed  an  unusual  social  significance. 
It  tended  from  the  beginning  to  weaken  degrading  class 
distinctions,  and  it  immediately  raised  even  the  slave  to 
a  position  of  native  dignity.  The  conception  of  the 


vii  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  169 

equality  of  all  men  before  the  Deity,  which  such  a 
doctrine  supplemented,  was  also  of  profound  importance 
and  in  an  even  wider  sense.  The  theoretical  conception 
to  which  it  gave  rise  that  all  men  are  born  equal  (an 
assumption  which,  it  must  be  remembered,  receives  no 
sanction  from  science  or  experience)  has  been  throughout 
one  of  the  most  characteristic  products  of  our  civilisation, 
and  it  has  played  a  large  part  in  that  process  of  expan- 
sion through  which  the  Western  peoples  have  passed. 

The  abolition  of  slavery  was,  however,  only  the  first 
step  in  the  evolutionary  process.  The  others  possess 
even  greater  interest.  We  may  observe  in  European 
history  the  peculiar  manner  in  which  the  develop- 
ment which  is  gradually  bringing  all  the  people  into 
the  rivalry  of  life  on  conditions  of  equality  has  pro- 
ceeded. In  the  countries  where  it  has  taken  place 
in  a  regular  manner,  it  is  not  so  much  the  concentra- 
tion and  determination  of  the  advance  of  the  people 
that  is  noticeable.  We  observe  rather  how  the  classes 
in  power  have  been  steadily  retreating,  and  extending 
the  privileges  of  their  own  position  in  greater  measure 
to  larger  and  larger  numbers  of  the  outside  classes. 
The  change  has  taken  place  slowly  at  first,  but  more 
rapidly  as  we  approach  our  own  times,  and  it  is  pro- 
ceeding most  rapidly  of  all  in  the  period  in  which  we 
are  living.  Our  histories  are  filled  with  descriptions  of 
phases  of  this  movement,  and  with  theories  and  ex- 
planations of  the  causes  which  have  been  at  work  in 
producing  these  local  manifestations.  But  the  evolu- 
tionist sooner  or  later  sees  that  the  influences  which 
have  produced  these  merely  subsidiary  eddies  are  not 
the  prime  cause,  and  that  there  must  be  one  common  cause 
operating  progressively  and  over  a  prolonged  period  in 
which  all  these  subordinate  phenomena  have  their  origin. 


i;o  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

There  can  scarcely  be  any  doubt  as  to  where  we  must 
look  for  this.  It  arises  from  the  development  of  the 
same  influence  that  abolished  slavery.  It  is  to  be 
found  in  that  great  fund  of  altruistic  feeling  generated 
by  the  ethical  system  upon  which  our  civilisation  is 
founded.  It  is  this  which  provides  the  prime  motive 
force  behind  the  whole  series  of  political  and  social 
phenomena  peculiar  to  our  civilisation  which  we  include 
together  under  the  general  head  of  "  progress."  But 
the  manner  in  which  the  cause  operates  is  little  under- 
stood. 

It  is  in  the  main  a  correct  insight  which  has  led  so 
many  writers  of  the  advanced  school  to  regard  the 
French  Revolution  as  the  objective  starting-point  of  the 
modern  world.  It  is  not  that  the  Revolution  has  in 
any  way  added  to  or  taken  from  the  developmental 
forces  that  are  shaping  this  world.  It  is  simply  that 
causes,  for  the  most  part  local  and  exceptional,  which 
did  not  occur  amongst  peoples  whose  development  had 
taken  a  more  regular  course,  there  contributed  to  bring 
face  to  face  the  old  spirit  and  the  new  in  extreme  con- 
trast and  opposition,  and  in  a  situation  fraught  to  the 
most  extraordinary  degree  with  human  interest. 

No  one  can  rise  from  the  study  of  this  remarkable 
period  without  feeling,  however  dimly,  that  he  has  been 
watching  the  operation  of  a  force  utterly  unlike  any 
of  which  the  ancient  world  had  experience — a  force 
which,  though  peculiar  to  our  civilisation  from  the 
beginning,  here,  for  the  first  time  manifested  itself  in 
a  striking  and  clearly  -  defined  manner  in  European 
history.  Not  to  realise  the  nature  of  this  force  is  to 
misunderstand,  not  only  the  Revolution,  but  all  current 
political  and  social  history  amongst  ourselves  and  all 
other  sections  of  the  advanced  European  peoples.  At 


vii  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  171 

the  time  of  the  Kevolution  nothing  so  powerfully  im- 
pressed the  spectator  as  the  irresistible  advance  of 
the  people ;  at  this  distance  of  time  nothing  causes  so 
much  wonder  as  their  weakness.  They  were  without 
weapons,  without  organisation,  without  definite  aims. 
Even  their  leaders  were  but  the  representatives  of 
different  and,  in  many  cases,  utterly  antagonistic 
currents  of  thought  which  met  and  surged  wildly 
together,  and  which,  while  struggling  amongst  them- 
selves for  mastery,  were  swept  onwards  by  deeper  and 
obscurer  forces  over  which  these  leaders  had  no 
control,  and  which  they  did  not  themselves  under- 
stand. 

The  strength  of  the  people  apparently  lay  in  their 
enthusiasm.  This,  in  its  turn,  was  the  product  of  the 
sense  of  pity  for  themselves  and  for  each  other  in  the 
state  of  profound  misery  and  degradation  in  which  they 
found  themselves ;  and  it  was  rendered  the  more  in- 
tense by  the  contrast  their  lives  presented  in  com- 
parison with  those  of  the  classes  above  them  in  the 
social  scale.  But  although  this  situation,  and  the  state 
of  things  which  led  up  to  it,  has  been  ably  and  accur- 
ately described  by  many  writers,  we  do  not  reach, 
through  details  of  this  kind,  however  accurate  and 
exhaustive,  the  inner  significance  of  the  Revolution. 
It  was  no  new  spectacle  in  history  for  the  people  to  rise 
against  their  masters.  They  had  often  done  so  before, 
and  they  had  almost  invariably  been  driven  back  to 
their  tasks.  The  odds  which  might  have  been  utilised 
against  them  were  enormous.  Why,  therefore,  were 
they  successful  on  this  occasion ;  and  why  is  the 
Revolution  to  all  ap'pearance,  and  for  this  reason,  the 
beginning  of  a  new  world  ?  It  is  not  until  we  look  at 
the  other  side  that  we  begin  to  understand  the  nature 


172  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

of  the  force  on  the  side  of  the  people  which  is  peculiar 
to  our  civilisation. 

The  most  striking  spectacle  in  all  that  memorable 
period  was,  undoubtedly,  the  weakness  and  disorganisa- 
tion of  the  party  representing  the  ruling  classes.  It 
has  been  the  custom  to  attribute  the  success  of  the 
Revolution  to  the  decay,  misrule,  and  corruption  of 
these  classes ;  but  history,  while  recognising  these 
causes,  will  probably  regard  them  as  but  incidental. 
Its  calmer  verdict  must  be,  that  it  was  in  the  hearts 
of  these  classes  and  not  in  the  streets  that  the  cause  of 
the  people  was  won.  It  is  impossible,  even  at  this 
distance  of  time,  to  observe  without  a  feeling  of  wonder 
and  even  of  awe,  the  extent  to  which  the  ideas  of  the 
Revolution  had  undermined  the  position  of  the  upper 
classes.  Effective  resistance  was  impossible ;  they  could 
not  utilise  their  own  strength.  We  begin  to  understand 
this  slowly.  We  look  for  any  inspiriting  appeal ;  for 
any  rally  against  the  forces  arrayed  against  them ;  for 
any  of  that  conscious  devotion  to  a  worthy  cause  which 
has  made  even  forlorn  hopes  successful,  and  which  here, 
in  the  presence  of  overpowering  odds  against  the  people, 
would  have  rendered  their  opponents  irresistible.  But 
we  look  in  vain.  The  great  body  of  humanitarian 
feeling  which  had  been  slowly  accumulating  so  long 
had  done  its  work ;  it  had  sapped  the  foundations  of 
the  old  system.  Elsewhere  the  transforming  agent  had 
operated  by  degrees,  and  the  result,  at  any  time,  had 
been  less  noticeable;  here,  where  the  fabric  had  out- 
wardly held,  it  had  all  gone  down  suddenly  and  com- 
pletely, because  the  columns  which  had  supported  it 
were  deeply  affected  by  the  disintegrating  process. 
The  conceptions  of  which  the  Revolution  was  born  had 
given  enthusiasm  to  the  people,  and  even  a  certain 


vii  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  173 

cohesion  to  the  most  intractable  material.  But  their 
natural  opponents  were  without  either  enthusiasm  or 
cohesion  ;  they  were  indirectly  almost  as  profoundly 
affected  as  the  people  by  the  force  which  was  recon- 
stituting the  world. 

A  fuller  and  franker  recognition  of  the  true  position 
occupied  at  this  period  by  the  nobility  and  power- 
holding  classes  in  France,  must  apparently  be  one  of  the 
features  of  the  work  of  the  future  historian  who  would  do 
justice  to  the  Revolution.  They  occupied  a  position 
almost  unique  in  history,  large  numbers  of  them  being, 
as  Michelet  has  expressed  it,  at  once  the  heirs  and  the 
enemies  of  their  own  cause.  "  Educated  in  the  gener- 
ous ideas  of  the  philosophy  of  the  time,  they  applauded 
that  marvellous  resuscitation  of  mankind,  and  offered 
up  prayers  for  it,  even  though  it  cost  their  ruin." l  It 
is  easier  to  be  ironical,  like  Carlyle,  than  to  attempt  to 
do  justice,  like  Michelet,  to  the  remarkable  spectacle 
presented  by  the  meeting  of  the  Assembly  on  the  night 
of  the  4th  August  1789,  when  feudalism  "after  a  reign 
of  a  thousand  years,  abdicates,  abjures,  and  condemns 
itself."  The  subject  lent  itself  admirably  to  Carlyle's 
sarcastic  pen.  "A  memorable  night,  this  Fourth  of 
August :  Dignitaries  temporal  and  spiritual ;  Peers, 
Archbishops,  Parlement- President,  each  outdoing  the 
other  in  patriotic  devotedness,  come  successively  to 
throw  their  now  untenable  possessions  on  the  'altar  of 
the  fatherland.'  Louder  and  louder  vivats — for  indeed 
it  is  '  after  dinner '  too — they  abolish  Tithes,  Seignorial 
Dues,  Gabelle,  excessive  Preservation  of  Game ;  nay 
Privilege,  Immunity,  Feudalism  root  and  branch,  then 
appoint  a  Te  Deum  for  it,  and  so  finally  disperse  about 
three  in  the  morning  striking  the  stars  with  their  sub- 

1  Historical  View  of  the  French  Revolution,  Book  2,  chap.  iv. 


174  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

lime  heads."1  The  evolutionist  sees,  however,  no  cause 
for  regarding  such  a  spectacle  as  any  other  than  one  of 
the  most  remarkable  that  human  history  presents.  It 
was  one  of  the  earlier  scenes  of  the  Eevolution.  But 
never  before  had  the  power-holding  classes  regarded  in 
such  a  spirit  the  movement  which  threatened  to  engulf 
and  overwhelm  them.  We  must  recognise  that  beneath 
these  incidents,  however  they  may  appear  to  move  the 
irony  of  the  recorder,  we  are  in  the  presence  of  a  force 
different  in  character  from  any  that  moved  the  ancient 
world,  a  force  which  had  indeed  rendered  the  ancient 
constitution  of  society  no  longer  possible. 

But  to  understand  the  significance  of  the  Revolution 
and  the  real  nature  of  the  forces  which  produced  it,  our 
proper  standpoint  is  not  in  history,  nor  in  the  events  of 
the  past,  but  rather  in  the  midst  of  the  strenuous  con- 
flict of  contemporary  life.  Nay,  more,  we  shall  not  find 
a  more  profitable  post  of  observation  from  which  to  study 
the  forces  that  produced  the  French  Revolution,  and  in 
which  to  convince  ourselves  of  the  continuity  and  unity 
of  the  process  of  development  which  the  Western  peoples 
are  undergoing,  than  in  the  very  thick  of  the  current 
political  life  of  the  British  nation.  For  here,  in  the 
midst  of  a  people  whose  history  has  been,  so  far,  to  a 
large  extent  one  of  orderly  development,  we  stand 
continuously  in  the  actual  presence  of  that  force  which 
is  reconstituting  the  world,  and  observe  on  every  side, 
when  we  understand  the  nature  of  the  process  which  is 
proceeding,  the  potency  and  promise  of  further  develop- 
ment of  the  most  vigorous  and  transforming  character. 

It  may  be  noticed,  if  we  observe  closely  the  political 
and  social  life  of  our  time,  that  most  of  the  complex 
forces  at  work  in  reality  range  themselves  on  the 

1  The  French  Revolution,  voL  L  Book  6,  chap,  ii 


vii  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  175 

side  of  one  or  the  other  of  two  great  opposing  parties. 
On  one  side  we  have  that  party  which  is  but  the  modern 
liberalised  representative  of  that  power -holding  class 
already  referred  to.  In  the  transition  from  the  military 
to  the  industrial  type  of  society  in  England  it  has  become 
largely  transformed  into  the  capitalist  class.  It  is  still  the 
party  of  wealth,  prestige,  leisure,  and  social  influence  and 
position.  On  the  other  side  we  have  a  party  comprised 
to  the  largest  extent  of  those  lower  in  the  social  scale, 
and  including  the  greater  part  of  those  who  lead  toil- 
some, strenuous  lives  for  the  least  reward.  In  England 
where  the  course  of  social  development  has  been  less 
interrupted  by  disturbing  influences  than  in  many  other 
countries,  these  opponents  correspond  more  or  less 
closely  to  the  two  great  historic  parties  in  the  state.  In 
France,  in  the  United  States,  in  Germany,  and  in  other 
countries  we  have,  in  reality,  the  same  two  parties  no 
less  distinctly  in  opposition,  although  local  and  particular 
causes  to  some  extent  prevent  them  from  thus  clearly 
confronting  each  other  continuously  and  all  along  the 
line  as  organised  political  forces. 

If  we  inquire  now  what  the  history  of  progressive 
legislation  has  been  during  a  long  period  extending 
down  into  our  own  times,  we  shall  find  that  it  presents 
remarkable  features.  It  may  be  summed  up  in  a  few 
words.  It  is  simply  the  history  of  a  continuous  series 
of  concessions,  demanded  and  obtained  by  that  party 
which  is,  undoubtedly,  through  its  position,  inherently 
the  weaker  of  these  two  from  that  power-holding  party 
which  is  equally  unmistakably  the  stronger.  There  is 
no  break  in  the  series  ;  there  is  no  exception  to  the  rule. 
The  record  of  the  past  is  undeniable ;  but  the  promise 
of  the  future  is  not  the  less  significant,  for  the  pro- 
grammes of  all  advancing  parties  consist  simply  of 


176  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

further  demands,  which  in  due  time  we  may  expect  to 
see  met  in  like  manner  with  further  concessions.  This 
is  the  manner  in  which  progress  is  being  made.  But 
what,  it  may  be  asked,  is  the  meaning  of  this  peculiar 
and  noteworthy  relationship  of  the  two  parties,  for  it 
undoubtedly  presents  a  spectacle  which  is  altogether 
exceptiDnal  in  the  history  of  the  world  ? 

One  of  the  explanations  most  frequently  offered  is 
that  the  situation  arises  from  the  unscrupulous  bidding 
of  politicians  for  power  and  office  under  our  system  of 
popular  government.  When,  however,  we  look  into  the 
matter  this  explanation  is  perceived  to  be  insufficient  to 
account  for  the  facts  of  the  situation.  Politicians  can, 
in  the  first  place,  obtain  power  only  from  those  who  have 
it  to  bestow ;  and,  if  this  explanation  was  correct,  the 
series  of  concessions  referred  to  could  only  have  been 
obtained — had  the  party  conceding  them  been  resolutely 
unwilling  to  grant  them — by  a  continuous  series  of 
political  betrayals  by  this  party's  own  representatives. 
We  do  not,  however,  find  in  political  history  any 
such  series  of  betrayals  on  record.  Nor  is  it  to  be 
expected  that  such  a  condition  could  continue  as  one  of 
the  normal  features  of  public  life.  Another  explanation, 
currently  offered,  is  that  the  result  is  caused  by  the 
growing  strength  and  intelligence  of  the  people's  party 
which  render  the  attack  irresistible.  But  we  may 
readily  perceive  that  the  increasing  strength  and 
intelligenc3  of  the  lower  classes  of  the  community  is 
the  result  rf  the  change  which  is  in  progress,  and  that 
it  cannot,  therefore,  be  by  itself  the  cause.  It  must 
always  be  remembered  too  that  the  party  from  which  the 
concessions  are  being  won  is,  in  the  nature  of  things  and 
from  its  entrenched  position,  even  still  immeasurably 
the  stronger  of  the  two ;  and  that  elsewhere,  outside  the 


vii  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  177 

modern  period,  where  the  two  classes  have  confronted 
each  other,  the  record  of  history  is  emphatic  to  the 
effect  that  this  party  has  always  ruthlessly  overmastered 
the  other.  There  must  evidently  be  some  other  operating- 
cause,  large,  deep-seated,  and  constant,  which  is  pro- 
ducing this  gradual  orderly  change  in  the  relationship  of 
the  two  opponents. 

If  we  look  back  through  the  present  century  at  the 
great  movements  in  English  political  life,  which  have 
resulted  in  the  carrying,  one  after  another,  of  the 
numerous  legislative  measures  that  have  had  for  their 
object  the  emancipation  and  the  raising  of  the  lower 
classes  of  the  people,  it  will  be  perceived  that  the  method 
in  which  progress  has  been  produced  has  always  been 
the  same.  The  first  step  has  invariably  been  the  forma- 
tion of  a  great  body  of  feeling  or  sentiment  in  favour  of 
the  demand.  To  describe  this  body  of  opinion  as  the 
product  simply  of  class  selfishness  would  show  lack  of 
insight.  It  is  always  something  much  more  than  this. 
If  it  be  closely  scrutinised,  it  will  generally  be  found  to 
be  in  a  large  degree  the  result  of  that  extreme  sensitive- 
ness of  the  altruistic  feelings  to  stimulus  which  has  been 
already  noticed.  The  public  mind  has  become  so 
intolerant  of  the  sight  of  misery  or  wrong  of  any  kind 
that,  as  the  conditions  of  the  life  of  the  excluded  masses 
of  the  people  are  gradually  brought  under  discussion  and 
come  into  the  light,  this  feeling  of  intolerance  slowly 
gathers  force,  until  at  last  it  finds  expression  in  that 
powerful  body  of  opinion  or  sentiment  which  has  been 
behind  all  the  great  social  and  political  reforms  of  our 
time.3 

1  The  press  and  all  the  machinery  of  communication  and  of  modern 
social  life  are,  of  course,  powerful  factors  in  concentrating  this  body  of 
opinion,  and  in  enabling  it  to  find  expression. 

'     N 


I7»  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

Even  amongst  those  classes  of  the  people  who  must 
immediately  profit  by  the  change,  the  impulses  which 
move  them  cannot,  with  truth,  be  described  as  simply 
selfish.  "We  have  to  observe  that  the  feeling  which  is, 
at  the  present  time,  stirring  the  lower  classes  in  most 
lands  included  in  our  Western  civilisation  is  largely  a 
sense  of  pity  for  each  other  and  for  themselves  as  a  class 
in  the  toilsome,  cheerless  conditions  in  which  their  lives 
are  cast;  this  feeling  being  strengthened  to  an  extra- 
ordinary degree  by  that  sense  of  the  innate  quality  of 
all  men  which  has  entered  so  deeply  into  the  minds  of 
the  advanced  European  peoples,  and  by  the  conscious- 
ness of  the  contrast  their  lives  nevertheless  present 
to  those  at  the  other  end  of  the  social  scale.  Into  the 
body  of  opinion  in  which  these  feelings  find  expression, 
the  element  of  sordid  private  selfishness  enters  to  a  far 
less  degree  than  is  commonly  supposed.  It  is,  as  a 
whole,  and  in  the  best  sense,  the  product  of  the  altruistic 
feelings.  It  is  primarily  the  result  of  that  deepening 
of  character  which  has  been  in  progress  amongst  us, 
and  it  is  for  this  reason  that  the  demands  of  the  masses 
are  now  made,  and  must  continue  to  be  made,  with  a 
depth  of  conviction,  a  degree  of  resolution,  and  a  sense 
of  courage  which  mere  private  selfishness  could  not 
inspire,  and  which  render  them  in  the  highest  degree 
significant. 

But  it  is  only  when  we  come  to  fix  our  attention  on 
the  other  side,  on  that  party  from  which  the  concessions 
are  being  obtained,  and  which  is  in  retreat  before  the 
advancing  people,  that  we  become  fully  conscious  of  the 
peculiar  and  exceptional  nature  of  the  phenomenon  we  are 
regarding.  It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  this  party  is 
the  present-day  representative  of  the  class  which  has 
for  ages  successfully  held  the  people  in  subjection,  which 


WESTERN  CIVILISATION 


179 


has  erected  impregnable  barriers  against  them,  which 
has  throughout  history  consistently  reserved  in  its  own 
hands  all  power  and  influence,  so  as  to  render  any 
assault  on  its  position  well-nigh  hopeless.  Nay,  more, 
it  is  the  party  which,  as  we  have  seen,  still  possesses  a 
reserve  of  strength  which  renders  it  inherently  immeasur- 
ably stronger  than  its  opponent.  Yet  by  a  long  list  of 
legislative  measures,  we  now  behold  this  same  party 
educating,  enfranchising,  and  equipping  its  opponent  in 
the  struggle  against  itself.  The  record  of  public  life  for 
the  past  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  is  an  extraordinary 
spectacle  in  this  respect,  and  it  is  only  our  familiarity 
with  the  currents  of  thought  in  our  time  which  could 
lead  us  to  forget  that  the  movement  we  are  witnessing 
is  one  which  is  quite  unique  in  the  history  of  the  world. 
If  we  come  to  examine  closely  the  causes  at  work 
in  producing  this  result,  we  shall  find  that  they  all 
have  their  root  in  the  phenomenon  we  have  been 
considering.  It  must  be  observed  that  the  fact  ot 
most  significance  is  the  extent  to  which  this  deepening 
and  softening  of  the  character  has  progressed  among 
the  power -holding  class.  This  class  is  even  more 
affected  than  the  opposing  party.  The  result  is 
peculiar.  It  is  thereby  rendered  incapable  of  utilising  its 
own  strength,  and  consequently  of  making  any  effective 
resistance  to  the  movement  which  is  undermining  its 
position.  All  heart  is,  in  fact,  taken  out  of  its  opposi- 
tion ;  men's  minds  have  become  so  sensitive  to  suffering, 
misery,  wrong,  and  degradation  of  every  kind  that  it 
cannot  help  itself.  As  light  continues  to  be  let  in  on 
the  dark  foundations  of  our  social  system,  the  develop- 
mental forces  do  their  work  silently  but  effectively  in 
strengthening  the  attack  on  one  side  it  is  true ;  but  to  a 
far  greater  and  more  significant  extent  in  weakening  the 


i8o  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

defence  on  the  other — by  disintegrating  the  convictions 
and  undermining  the  faith  of  the  defending  party. 

We  may  note  clearly  in  English  public  life  the 
different  effects  produced  on  different  sections  of  the 
retreating  party.  In  the  first  place,  a  considerable 
number  of  the  best  and  most  generous  minds  are 
affected.  The  effect  produced  on  these  is  such  that, 
instead  of  siding  with  the  class  to  which  by  tradition 
and  individual  interest  they  undoubtedly  belong,  they 
take  their  places  in  the  ranks  of  the  opponents.1  But 
those  who  remain  are  not  less  significantly  affected.  It 
may  be  noticed  that  they  hardly  attempt  to  deny  the 
force  of  the  case  brought  against  them  by  their  oppon- 
ents ;  they  mostly  confine  their  defence  to  arguing  that 
things  are  not  really  so  bad  as  they  are  represented  to 
be,  that  there  is  exaggeration  and  misrepresentation. 
And  at  worst,  and  as  a  last  resource,  they  tend  to  fall 
back  upon  science  to  say  that  even  the  remedy  proposed 
would  not  be  effective  in  the  long-run,  and  that  matters 
are,  in  the  nature  of  things,  ultimately  irremediable. 

And  so  our  modern  progress  towards  the  equalisa- 
tion of  the  conditions  of  life  continues  to  be  made. 
It  is  not  so  much  the  determination  of  the  attack, 
although  it  is  both  firm  and  determined  as  far  as  may 
be ;  it  is  rather  that  through  the  all  -  pervading 

i  The  leaders  of  the  masses  do  not  always  realise  the  nature  of  the 
forces  which  are  working  on  their  side,  and  they  sometimes  overlook  how 
much  they  owe  to  those  who  are  naturally  members  of  the  party  to  which 
they  are  opposed.  Mr.  Grant  Allen  has  lately  pointed  out  that  the  chief 
reformers  have  not,  as  a  rule,  come  from  the  masses.  "  Most  of  the  best 
Radicals  I  have  known,"  he  says,  "  were  men  of  gentle  birth  and  breed- 
ing," although  others,  just  as  earnest,  just  as  eager,  just  as  chivalrous, 
sprang  from  the  masses.  It  is,  he  says,  a  common  taunt  on  the  one  side 
to  say  that  the  battle  is  one  between  the  Haves  and  the  Have-nots. 
But  that  is  by  no  means  true.  "  It  is  between  the  selfish  Haves  on  the 
one  side,  and  the  unselfish  Haves  who  wish  to  see  something  done  for  the 
Have-nots  on  the  other." — Wettminster  Gazette,  26th  April  1893. 


vii  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  181 

influence  in  our  civilisation  of  that  immense  fund  of 
altruism  with  which  it  has  been  equipped,  the  occupy- 
ing party  finds  its  faith  in  its  own  cause  undermined. 
It  possesses  no  firm  conviction  of  the  justice  of  its 
position  of  the  kind  necessary  to  maintain  that  position 
successfully  against  attack;  it  has  agreed  upon  an 
orderly  retreat;  it  is  abandoning  its  outworks,  sur- 
rendering its  positions,  evacuating  its  entrenchments 
one  after  the  other  and  all  along  the  line.  This  is  the 
real  significance  of  the  remarkable  and  altogether 
exceptional  spectacle  presented  throughout  our  "Western 
civilisation  at  the  present  day. 

If  we  look  round  now  at  all  the  great  social  and 
political  movements  which  are  in  progress,  it  may  be 
perceived  that  we  possess  the  key  to  our  times.  It  is 
in  this  softening  of  the  character,  in  this  deepening  and 
strengthening  of  the  altruistic  feelings,  with  their  in- 
creased sensitiveness  to  stimulus,  and  the  consequent 
ever-growing  sense  of  responsibility  to  each  other,  that 
we  have  the  explanation  of  all  the  social  and  political 
movements  which  are  characteristic  of  the  period.  In 
the  times  in  which  we  are  living,  the  most  remarkable 
product  of  this  spirit  is  that  widespread  movement 
affecting  the  working  classes  throughout  Europe  and 
America,  which  has  been  described  as  the  "revolt  of 
labour."  Of  all  the  developments  which  are  in  progress 
at  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century,  it  is  the  most  im- 
portant because  the  most  characteristic.  But,  like  all 
other  social  movements  that  have  preceded  it,  it  is  the 
direct  product  of  the  change  in  character  we  are  under- 
going, born  of  it  in  due  time,  intimately  and  vitally 
associated  with  it  at  every  point,  incapable  of  any 
success  or  even  of  any  existence  apart  from  it.  It  has 
been  the  custom  to  attribute  the  progress  and  the  success 


1 82  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

of  the  movement  by  which  the  working  classes  have 
already  obtained  a  large  share  of  political  power  and 
through  which  they  are  now  laying  the  foundation  of  a 
more  equal  social  state,  to  a  variety  of  causes, — to  the 
spread  of  education,  to  the  growth  of  intelligence,  to 
development  of  the  influence  of  the  press,  to  the  pro- 
gress of  industrialism,  to  the  annihilation  of  space  by 
the  improved  means  of  communication  and  the  in- 
creased opportunities  for  organisation  resulting,  and, 
generally,  to  "  economic  tendencies  "  of  all  kinds.  But 
it  is  primarily  due  to  none  of  these  things.  It  has  its 
roots  in  a  single  cause,  namely,  the  development  of  the 
humanitarian  feelings,  and  the  deepening  and  softening 
of  character  that  has  taken  place  amongst  the  Western 
peoples. 

The  manner  in  which  the  cause  acts  will  be  immedi- 
ately perceived  on  reflection.  The  working  classes  are 
indeed  themselves  keenly  alive  to  the  method  of  its 
operation.  It  may  be  constantly  noticed  in  the  course 
of  the  struggle  in  which  labour  is  engaged  against  the 
terms  of  the  capitalist  class,  and  more  particularly  in 
those  pitched  battles  which  occur  from  time  to  time  in 
the  form  of  strikes,  that  the  determining  factor  is  always 
in  reality  public  opinion ;  and,  in  Great  Britain  at  least, 
public  opinion  tends  to  be  more  and  more  on  the  side  of 
the  working  classes  when  the  battle  is  fairly  conducted. 
This  public  opinion,  it  must  be  remarked  also,  is  by  no 
means  merely  the  opinion  of  those  sections  of  the  popula- 
tion which  might  be  expected  to  sympathise  with  the 
lower  masses  through  class-feeling  or  motives  of  class- 
selfishness  ;  it  includes  the  opinions  of  large  numbers  of 
individuals  of  all  classes,  not  excepting  many  whose  inter- 
ests, so  far  as  they  are  concerned,  would  tend  to  be  favour- 
ably affected  by  the  success  of  the  other  party  engaged. 


vii  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  183 

It  is  the  same  if  we  look  round  in  other  directions. 
It  is  the  action  of  this  fund  of  altruistic  feeling  in  the 
community,  its  all-pervading  influence  on  every  one  of 
us,  and  the  resulting  sensitiveness  of  individual  and 
public  character  to  misery  or  wrong  inflicted  on  any  one, 
however  humble,  which  alone  renders  that  process  of 
social  development  which  is  going  on  around  us  possible. 
Without  it  our  laws  would  be  absurd,  and  our  demo- 
cratic institutions  impossible.  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer 
has  lately1  objected  to  the  English  and  American 
system  of  party  government,  on  the  ground  that  it 
is  capable  of  lending  itself  to  a  one-man  or  a  one-party 
tyranny.  And  if  we  leave  out  of  account  the  special 
circumstances  of  our  times,  such  a  system  of  govern- 
ment does  seem  in  theory  one  of  the  most  ridiculous 
that  ever  existed.  Yet,  with  all  its  faults,  and  despite 
the  features  Mr.  Spencer  objects  to,  it  proves  to 
be,  in  practice,  one  of  the  most  perfect.  A  system 
which,  in  England,  allows  a  bare  majority  to  rule 
absolutely  would  appear  to  commit  small  minorities 
holding  opinions  differing  from  those  of  the  great 
majority  of  their  fellows  to  the  most  hopeless  form  of 
tyranny.  A  system  which  allows  a  bare  majority, 
when  it  attains  to  power,  to  reverse  all  the  acts  of  its 
opponents,  would,  in  a  community  where  party  feeling 
runs  high,  seem  to  be  an  ideal  system  for  securing 
political  chaos.  Yet  the  opinions  of  minorities  are 
treated  with  respect,  unknown  in  ancient  history,  and, 
in  Great  Britain  at  least,  the  acts  of  one  party  are 
never  reversed  by  its  successor.  But  the  reason  does 
not  exist  in  State  Constitutions  ;  it  is  to  be  found  in 
this  extreme  sensitiveness  of  the  public  conscience 
to  wrong  or  unfairness.  Acts  which  are  considered 

1  Principles  of  Ethics. 


(84  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

wrong  could  not  be  attempted  with  impunity  by  any 
party,  for  it  would  find  itself  immediately  deserted  by 
its  own  supporters. 

It  is  here,  and  here  only,  that  we  stand  in  the  real 
presence  of  the  force  that  is  moving,  regulating,  and 
reconstructing  the  world  around  us,  without  which  our 
progress  would  cease,  and  our  forms  of  government  be 
unworkable.  It  must  be  remembered  that,  as  in  the 
case  of  slavery,  the  intellect  alone  can  never  furnish 
any  sanction  to  the  power-holding  classes  for  surrender- 
ing to  the  people  the  influence  and  position  which  they 
have  inherited.  If  the  teaching  of  the  intellect  is 
merely  that  the  process  tending  to  secure  the  survival 
of  the  fittest,  and  the  elimination  of  the  least  efficient, 
goes  on  as  efficiently  under  all  the  forms  of  the  highest 
civilisation  as  elsewhere,  then,  to  repeat  the  argument 
already  used,  individual  reason  alone  cannot  be  expected 
to  furnish  any  condemnation  of  those  who,  being  the 
strongest,  and  regarding  their  interests  enclosed  within 
the  span  of  a  single  lifetime,  or  at  best  within  the  life- 
time of  a  few  generations,  should  utilise  their  strength 
to  their  own  advantage.  They  could  do  so  with 
courage  and  conviction.  The  conception  of  the  native 
equality  of  men  which  has  played  so  great  a  part  in  the 
social  development  that  has  taken  place  in  our  civilisa- 
tion is  essentially  irrational.  It  receives  no  sanction 
from  reason  or  experience ;  it  is  the  characteristic  pro- 
duct of  that  ultra-rational  system  of  ethics  upon  which 
our  civilisation  is  founded. 

We  have  only  to  imagine  the  development  of  the 
altruistic  feelings  which  has  taken  place  as  non-existent 
to  realise  forcibly  the  immense  part  which  it  plays  in 
our  modern  societies.  If  we  can  picture  the  power- 
holding  classes  throughout  our  Western  civilisation 


vii  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  185 

again  filled  with  that  firm  belief  in  their  own  cause  and 
their  own  privileges,  and  that  contempt  for  large  masses 
of  their  fellow-creatures  which  prevailed  among  the 
"pure  democracies"  of  ancient  Greece,  and  under  the 
Eoman  Republic  and  Empire,  we  shall  have  no  difficulty 
in  realising  what  a  feeble  barrier  all  the  boasted  power 
to  which  the  people  have  attained  would  be  against 
class  rule,  even  of  the  most  ruthless  and  intolerant' 
kind.  The  rich  and  the  power-holding  classes  would  be 
able  even  now,  in  the  freest  and  most  advanced  com- 
munities, to  restrain,  arrest,  and  turn  back  the  tide  of 
progress.  All  the  liberties  and  securities  of  the  most 
extended  constitutional  Democracy  would  be  no  more 
than  the  liberties  and  securities  of  the  Roman  Republic 
were  to  Marius  or  to  Sylla  before  the  rise  of  the  Empire. 
All  the  power  of  the  press ;  all  the  appliances  of  science ; 
all  the  developments  of  industrialism  ;  all  the  "  economic 
tendencies"  which  are  now  held  to  make  for  the 
influence  of  the  people,  would,  in  such  circumstances, 
prove,  each  and  every  one,  but  effective  weapons 
of  offence  and  defence  in  the  hands  of  an  oppressive 
oligarchy. 

If  the  mind  is  carried  a  short  distance  backwards, 
it  will  be  seen,  now,  that  the  more  essential  conclusions 
to  which  we  have  been  led  in  the  present  chapter  are  as 
follows.  First,  that  the  process  of  social  development 
which  has  been  taking  place,  and  which  is  still  in 
progress  in  our  Western  civilisation,  is  not  the  product  / 
of  the  intellect,  but  that  the  motive  force  behind  it  has  j 
had  its  seat  and  origin  in  that  fund  of  altruistic  feeling 
with  which  our  civilisation  has  become  equipped. 
Second,  that  this  altruistic  development,  and  the 
deepening  and  softening  of  character  which  has  accom- 
panied it,  are  the  direct  and  peculiar  product  of  the 


1 86  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

religious  system  on  which  our  civilisation  is  founded. 
Third,  that  to  science  the  significance  of  the  resulting 
process  of  social  evolution,  in  which  all  the  people  are 
being  slowly  brought  into  the  rivalry  of  existence  on 
equal  conditions,  consists  in  the  single  fact  that  this 
rivalry  has  tended  to  be  thereby  raised  to  the  highest 
degree  of  efficiency  as  a  cause  of  progress  it  has  ever 
attained.  The  peoples  affected  by  the  process  have  been 
thereby  worked  up  to  a  state  of  social  efficiency  which 
has  given  them  preponderating  advantages  in  the 
struggle  for  existence  with  other  sections  of  the  race. 

If  we  are  to  regard  our  civilisation  as  a  single 
organic  growth,  and  if,  for  the  seat  of  these  vital  forces 
that  are  producing  the  movements  in  progress  around 
us,  we  must  look  to  the  ethical  development  which  has 
projected  itself  through  the  history  of  the  Western 
races,  it  is  evident  that  it  is  from  the  epoch  of  the 
Renaissance  and  the  Reformation  that  we  must,  in  a 
strictly  scientific  sense,  date  the  modern  expansion  of 
society.  From  the  point  of  view  of  science  the  pre- 
Reformation  and  the  post -Reformation  movement  is 
an  unbroken  unity  seen  in  different  stages  of  growth. 
But  it  is  in  the  period  of  the  post-Reformation  develop- 
ment that  it  became  the  destiny  of  the  religious  system, 
upon  which  our  civilisation  is  founded,  to  release  into 
the  practical  life  of  the  world  that  product  which 
constitutes  the  most  powerful  motive  influence  ever 
enlisted  in  the  cause  of  progress.  The  development 
which  took  place  at  this  stage  in  the  life  of  the  social 
organism  could  only  take  place  then.  The  time  for  it 
can  never  recur.  The  subsequent  course  of  social 
development  must  be  different  amongst  the  peoples 
where  it  was  retarded  or  suppressed,  and  amongst 
those  where  it  was  allowed  to  follow  its  natural 


vu  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  187 

course.1  The  nature  of  this  difference,  caused  by  the 
greater  development  of  the  humanitarian  feelings,  and 
the  greater  extent  to  which  the  deepening  and  softening 
of  the  character  has  proceeded  amongst  the  peoples 
most  affected  by  the  Eeformation,  will  be  dealt  with 
at  a  later  stage.2 

It  may  be  remarked  that  it  will  probably  be  objected 
by  some,  that  there  exists  amongst  us  at  the  present 
time  a  considerable  number  of  persons  who  are  not 
consciously  affected  by  the  religious  movement  to  which 
we  have  been  attributing  so  much  importance,  who 
regard  themselves  as  outside  its  influence,  but  who  are 
yet  obviously  affected  by,  and  in  full  sympathy  with,  the 
causes  which  are  making  for  progress.  It  will  be  urged 
that  there  are  not  wanting  a  considerable  number  of 
persons  at  the  present  day  of  leading,  eminence,  and 
influence,  whose  lives  and  teaching  are  themselves  the 
highest  examples  that  we  could  have  of  that  extra- 

1  Mr.  Lecky  has  followed  Macaulay  (Easay  on  Ranke's  History)  in 
noticing  that  the  later  movements  of  opinion  amongst  peoples  who  have 
not  accepted  the  principles  of  the  Reformation  have  been,  not  towards 
those  principles,  but  towards  Rationalism  (History  of  Rationalism,  voL  L 
pp.  170-173).      It  is  so  ;  but  the  conclusions  often  drawn  from  this  fact, 
disparaging  to  the  Reformation,  have  arisen  from  an  incomplete  sense  of 
the  nature  of  the  progressive  development  we  are  undergoing.     The  time 
for  the  development  which  then  took  place  has  for  ever  gone  by ;  it 
cannot  be  repeated  at  a  later  stage  in  the  life  of  the  organism.     But  the 
subsequent  course  of  social  progress  amongst  the  peoples  where  the  move- 
ment followed  its  natural  order,  will  be  profoundly  different  from  else- 
where.    It  is  amongst  these  peoples,  as  will  be  seen  in  a  later  chapter, 
that  the  social  revolution  which  it  is  the  destiny  of  our  civilisation  to 
accomplish  must  proceed  by  the  most  orderly  stages,  and  must  reach  its 
completest  expression. 

2  The  vital  connection  between  the  modern  industrial  expansion  and 
the  Reformation  is  recognised  by  many  socialists.     See,  for  instance,  the 
section  on  "  the  Modern  Revolution "  in  Mr.  Belfort  Bax's  Religion  of 
Socialism.     It  is,  of  course,  treated  of  from  the  author's  peculiar  stand- 
point ;  but  in  this,  as  in  many  other  matters,  socialistic  writers  show  a 
sense  of  the  essential  unity  and  interdependence  of  the  various  phases  of 
our  social  phenomena  which  is  often  wanting  in  their  critics. 


i88  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

ordinary  development  of  the  altruistic  feelings,  which 
has  been  regarded  as  the  peculiar  product  of  the  religious 
development  we  have  described,  but  who,  nevertheless, 
openly  profess  disbelief  in  the  teaching  which  it  inspires, 
and  who  would  altogether  disclaim  its  influence  in 
ordering  their  lives  or  directing  their  conduct.  How,  it 
will  be  asked,  are  we  to  reconcile  these  facts  with  the 
view  of  our  civilisation  as  the  product  of  this  religious 
movement,  and  with  our  conception  of  the  latter  as 
the  seat  of  those  vital  forces  which  are  moving  and 
reconstructing  the  modern  world  ? 

The  explanation  is  simple.  It  arises  naturally  when 
we  come  to  regard  the  history  of  our  civilisation  as 
the  record  of  a  long  process  of  social  development,  to 
the  progress  of  which  our  interests  as  individuals  are 
quite  subordinate.  It  has  been  insisted  throughout 
that  the  social  development  which  is  called  Western 
civilisation  is  not  the  product  of  any  particular  race  or 
people ;  that  it  must  be  regarded  as  an  organic  growth, 
the  key  to  the  life-history  of  which  is  to  be  found  in  the 
study  of  the  ethical  movement  which  extends  through 
it.  If  we  look  at  the  matter  in  this  light,  and  then  call 
to  mind  what  the  histories  of  the  nations  and  races 
embraced  within  the  life  of  this  organic  development 
have  been ;  if  we  reflect  how  deeply  these  peoples  have 
been  affected  at  every  point  by  the  movement  in  question; 
how  profoundly  their  laws,  institutions,  mental,  and 
moral  training,  ways  of  judging  conduct,  and  habits  of 
thought  have  been  influenced  for  an  immense  number  of 
generations  in  the  course  of  the  development  through 
which  they  have  passed,  we  shall  at  once  realise  that  it 
would  be  irrational  and  foolish  to  expect  that  any 
individuals,  or  classes,  or  all  the  individuals  of  a  single 
generation,  should  have  the  power  to  free  themselves 


vii  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  189 

from  this  influence.  We  are,  all  of  us,  whatever  our 
individual  opinions  may  be  concerning  this  movement, 
unconsciously  influenced  by  it  at  every  point  of  our 
careers,  and  in  every  moment  of  our  lives.  We,  like  our 
times,  are  mentally  and  morally  the  product  of  it ;  we 
simply  have  no  power  to  help  ourselves.  No  training, 
however  rigorous  and  prolonged,  no  intellectual  effort, 
however  consistent  and  concentrated,  could  ever  entirely 
emancipate  us  from  its  influence.  In  the  life  of  the 
individual,  the  influence  of  habits  of  thought  or  training 
once  acquired  can  be  escaped  from  only  with  the  greatest 
difficulty,  and  after  the  lapse  of  a  long  interval  of  time. 
How  much  more  so  in  the  immensely  longer  life  of  the 
social  organism  ? l 

It  has  been  the  aim  of  a  certain  class  of  writers, 
which  has  one  of  its  most  distinguished  representatives 
in  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer,  to  lead  us  to  regard  the  altruistic 
sentiments  as  a  kind  of  product  which  is  being  accumu- 
lated, as  it  were,  by  use  in  our  civilisation,  and  which 
we  tend,  therefore,  to  transmit  in  ever-increasing  ratio 
to  our  descendants.  In  course  of  time,  according  to  this 
view,  we  may  expect  to  be  born  ready  to  act  naturally 
and  instinctively  in  a  manner  conducive  to  the  good  of 
society.  The  exercise  of  the  altruistic  feelings  would,  in 

1  Eegarding  the  subject  from  his  own  standpoint,  Dr.  Marti neau 
observes  with  force  that,  in  a  society  constituted  as  ours  is,  "  the  ethical 
action  and  reaction  of  men  upon  each  other  will  be  infinite,  and  will,  so 
far,  prevail  over  the  solitary  force  of  individual  nature,  that  no  one, 
however  exceptionally  great,  will  escape  all  relation  to  the  general  level 
of  his  time.  The  dependence  then  of  the  moral  consciousness  for  its 
growth  upon  society  is  incident  to  its  very  nature.  But  to  suppose,  on 
this  account,  that  */  it  were  not  there  at  all  society  could  generate  it  •  and, 
by  skilful  financing  with  the  exchanges  of  pleasure  and  pain,  could  turn 
a  sentient  world  into  a  mofal  one,  will  never  cease  to  be  an  insolvent 
theory  which  makes  provision  for  no  obligation  :  never  so  long  as  it  ia 
true  that  out  of  nothing  nothing  comes." — Seat  of  Authority  in  Rdiyion, 
p.  54. 


190  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

such  circumstances,  be  independent  of  all  religious  sanc- 
tions, including  that  larger  class  which  operate  indirectly 
through  producing  satisfactions  of  the  kind  which  most 
people,  whatever  their  opinions,  derive  from  acting  in 
accordance  with  standards  which  general  feeling  holds 
to  be  right.  This  party,  as  we  shall  see  further  on,  must, 
however,  sooner  or  later,  find  itself  ranged  in  opposition 
to  the  progressive  tendencies  of  modern  biological  science, 
as,  indeed,  Mr.  Spencer  has  already  found  himself  to  be 
in  the  controversy  which  he  has  recently  undertaken 
against  the  Weismann  theories.1  But,  over  and  above 
this,  the  aim  throughout  the  preceding  pages  has  been 
to  show  that  the  peculiar  feature  in  which  human 
evolution  differs  from  all  previous  evolution  consists  in 
the  progressive  development  of  the  intellect,  rendering 
it  impossible  that  instincts  of  the  kind  indicated 
should  continue  to  act  as  efficient  sanctions  for  altruistic 
conduct.  Hence  the  characteristic  feature  of  human 
evolution,  ever  growing  with  the  growth  and  developing 
with  the  development  of  the  intellect,  and  forming  the 
natural  complement  of  its  growth  and  development; 
namely,  the  phenomenon  of  our  religions — the  function 
of  which  is  to  provide  the  necessary  controlling  sanc- 
tions in  the  new  circumstances.  Hence  also  the  success 
of  those  forms  which  have  provided  sanctions  that  have 
contributed  most  effectively  to  the  working  out  of  that 
cosmic  process  which  has  been  in  progress  from  the 
beginning  of  life.  Human  reason  alone  can  never,  in 
the  nature  of  things,  provide  any  effective  sanction  to 
the  individual  for  conduct  which  contributes  to  the 
furtherance  of  this  process,  for  one  of  the  essential 

1  Vide  Contemporary  Review,  February  1893,  "The  Inadequacy  of 
Natural  Selection,  I."  ;  Ibid.  March  1893,  "The  Inadequacy  of  Natural 
Selection,  IL"  ;  Ibid.  May  1893,  "Professor  Weismann's  Theoxiea." 


vii  WESTERN  CIVILISATION  191 

features  of  the  cosmic  process  is  the  sacrifice  of  the 
individual  himself,  not  merely  in  the  interest  of  his 
fellows  around  him,  but  in  the  interests  of  generations 
yet  unborn.  The  intellect,  uncontrolled  by  ethical 
forces  of  the  kind  we  have  been  considering,  must,  in 
society,  be  always  individualistic,  disintegrating,  destruc- 
tive; even,  as  we  shall  have  to  observe  later,  to  the 
extent  of  suspending  the  operation  (in  the  interests  of 
the  evolution  the  race  is  undergoing)  of  fundamental 
feelings  like  the  parental  instincts,  which  have  behind 
them,  not  only  the  infinitesimal  period  during  which 
society  has  existed,  but  the  whole  span  of  time  since  the 
beginning  of  life. 

In  conclusion,  it  may  be  remarked  that  nothing 
tends  to  exhibit  more  strikingly  the  extent  to  which  the 
study  of  our  social  phenomena  must  in  future  be  based 
on  the  biological  sciences,  than  the  fact  that  the 
technical  controversy  now  being  waged  by  biologists 
as  to  the  transmission  or  non-transmission  to  offspring 
of  qualities  acquired  during  the  lifetime  of  the  parent, 
is  one  which,  if  decided  in  the  latter  sense,  must 
produce  the  most  revolutionary  effect  throughout 
the  whole  domain  of  social  and  political  philosophy. 
If  the  old  view  is  correct,  and  the  effects  of  use  and 
education  are  transmitted  by  inheritance,  then  the 
Utopian  dreams  of  philosophy  in  the  past  are  un- 
doubtedly possible  of  realisation.  If  we  tend  to 
inherit  in  our  own  persons  the  result  of  the  education 
and  mental  and  moral  culture  of  past  generations,  then 
we  may  venture  to  anticipate  a  future  society  which 
will  not  deteriorate,  but  which  may  continue  to  make 
progress,  even  though  the  struggle  for  existence  be 
suspended,  the  population  regulated  exactly  to  the 
means  of  subsistence,  and  the  antagonism  between  the 


192  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP,  vii 

individual  and  the  social  organism  extinguished,  even 
as  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  has  anticipated.1  But  if,  as 
the  writer  believes,  the  views  of  the  Weismann  party 
are  in  the  main  correct;  if  there  can  be  no  progress 
except  by  the  accumulation  of  congenital  variations 
above  the  average  to  the  exclusion  of  others  below  ;  if, 
without  the  constant  stress  of  selection  which  this  in- 
volves, the  tendency  of  every  higher  form  of  life  is 
actually  retrograde;  then  is  the  whole  human  race 
caught  in  the  toils  of  that  struggle  and  rivalry  of  life 
which  has  been  in  progress  from  the  beginning.  Then 
must  the  rivalry  of  existence  continue,  humanised  as  to 
conditions  it  may  be,  but  immutable  and  inevitable  to 
the  end.  Then  also  must  all  the  phenomena  of  human 
life,  individual,  political,  social,  and  religious,  be  con- 
sidered as  aspects  of  this  cosmic  process,  capable  of 
being  studied  and  understood  by  science  only  in  their 
relations  thereto. 

1  Vide  Data  of  Ethics,  chap,  xi v. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

MODERN   SOCIALISM 

BEFORE  proceeding  now  to  the  further  consideration 
of  the  laws  which  underlie  the  complex  social  phenomena 
that  present  themselves  in  the  civilisation  around  us,  it 
will  be  well  to  look  for  a  moment  backwards,  so  as  to 
impress  on  the  mind  the  more  characteristic  features  of 
the  ground  over  which  we  have  travelled. 

We  have  seen  that  progress  from  the  beginning  of 
life  has  been  the  result  of  the  most  strenuous  and  im- 
perative conditions  of  rivalry  and  selection,  certain  funda- 
mental physiological  laws  rendering  it  impossible,  in  any 
other  circumstances,  for  life  to  continue  along  the  upward 
path  which  it  has  taken.  Man  being  subject  like 
other  forms  of  life  to  the  physiological  laws  in  question, 
his  progress  also  was  possible  only  under  the  conditions 
which  had  prevailed  from  the  beginning.  The  same 
process,  accordingly,  takes  its  course  throughout  human 
history ;  but  it  does  so  accompanied  by  phenomena 
quite  special  and  peculiar.  The  human  intellect  has 
been,  and  must  necessarily  continue  to  be,  an  important 
factor  in  the  evolution  which  is  proceeding.  Yet  the 
resulting  self-assertiveness  of  the  individual  must  be 
absolutely  subordinated  to  the  maintenance  of  a  process 
in  which  the  individual  himself  has  not  the  slightest 


194  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

interest,  but  to  the  furtherance  of  which  his  personal 
welfare  must  be  often  sacrificed.  Hence  the  central 
feature  of  human  history,  namely  the  dominance  of 
that  progressively  developing  class  of  phenomena  in- 
cluded under  the  head  of  religions  whereby  this  sub- 
ordination has  been  effected.  Hence,  also,  the  success 
of  those  forms  which  have  contributed  to  the  fullest 
working  out  of  that  cosmic  process  which  is  proceeding 
throughout  human  existence,  just  as  it  has  been  pro- 
ceeding from  the  beginning  of  life. 

What  we  have,  therefore,  specially  to  note  before 
advancing  further  is,  that  it  is  this  cosmic  process  which 
is  everywhere  triumphant  in  human  history.  There  has 
been  no  suspension  of  it.  There  has  been  no  tendency 
towards  suspension.  On  the  contrary  throughout  the 
period  during  which  the  race  has  existed,  the  peoples 
amongst  whom  the  process  has  operated  under  most 
favourable  conditions  have  always  been  the  most  suc- 
cessful. And  the  significance  of  that  last  and  greatest 
phase  of  social  development  which  has  taken  place  in 
our  Western  civilisation,  in  which  all  the  people  are 
being  slowly  brought  into  the  rivalry  of  life,  consists 
simply  in  the  fact  that  this  process  tends  to  reach 
therein  the  fullest  and  completest  expression  it  has  ever 
attained. 

Keeping  these  facts  in  mind,  let  us  now  proceed  to 
consider  the  significance  of  that  great  social  movement 
which  is  beginning  to  exert  a  gradually  deepening  in- 
fluence on  the  political  life  of  our  period.  The  uprising 
known  throughout  Europe,  and  in  America,  as  the 
Socialist  movement  is  the  most  characteristic  product 
of  our  time.  Nothing  is,  however,  more  remarkable 
than  the  uncertainty,  hesitation,  and  even  bewilderment 
with  which  it  is  regarded,  not  only  by  those  whose 


vin  MODERN  SOCIALISM  195 

business  lies  with  the  practical  politics  of  the  current 
day,  but  by  some  of  those  who,  from  the  larger  outlook 
of  social  and  historical  science,  might  be  expected  to 
have  formed  some  conception  of  its  nature,  its  propor- 
tions, and  its  meaning. 

In  attempting  to  examine  this  movement,  it  is  a 
matter  of  no  small  importance  to  carefully  consider  the 
environment  in  which  it  is  to  be  studied ;  for  a  very  brief 
reflection  makes  it  clear  that  many  of  the  phenomena 
associated  with  it  in  various  parts  of  our  civilisation  are 
due  to  local  causes  that  have  no  essential  connection 
with  the  movement  in  general.  Thus,  if  France  is 
chosen  as  the  locality  in  which  to  study  the  movement, 
it  sooner  or  later  becomes  clear  that  that  country,  de- 
spite its  early  and  trenchant  experiments  in  democratic 
government,  is  not  by  any  means  a  favourable  one  in 
which  to  observe  the  progress  of  modern  socialism.  The 
process  of  social  development  therein,  although  rapid, 
has  been  too  irregular,  and  its  people  have  too  com- 
pletely broken  with  the  past  to  allow  of  an  exact 
comparison  of  the  relationship  to  each  other  of  the 
developmental  forces  at  present  at  work.  In  the  recent 
history  of  the  country,  the  old  spirit  and  the  new  have 
tended  to  confront  each  other  in  extremes ;  and  we  must 
remember  that,  despite  the  genuine  triumph  which 
democracy  obtained  in  the  period  of  the  Kevolution,  it 
is  in  France  that  we  have  witnessed  within  the  nine- 
teenth century  attempts  to  revive,  on  a  most  ambitious 
scale,  that  ancient  spirit  of  military  Csesarism  which  is 
altogether  foreign  to  our  civilisation. 

In  Germany,  again,  we  have  a  country  which  in  many 
respects  must  be  considered  the  true  home  at  the  present 
day  of  social  democracy.  Yet  it  may  be  noted  that  even 
there  the  causes  which  have  contributed  most  effectively 


196  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

to  swell  the  proportions  of  the  existing  movement  are 
largely  local  and  peculiar.  Placed,  as  the  German  people 
are,  between  a  neighbour  like  France  on  the  one  side, 
and  a  country  like  Russia  in  a  far  earlier  stage  of  social 
evolution  on  the  other,  they  have  developed,  through 
force  of  circumstances,  an  extensive  militaryism  which, 
while  essentially  defensive  and  therefore  character- 
istically different  from  the  older  type,  tends,  nevertheless, 
to  retard  the  process  of  social  expansion  which  is  in 
progress,  and  to  develop  features  which  are  incompat- 
ible with  the  spirit  underlying  this  expansion.  In  many 
of  its  social  features,  Germany  is  still  backward,  although 
it  is  difficult  to  believe,  as  M.  Leroy-Beaulieu  asserts, 
that  it  remains,  despite  the  rapid  advance  made  by 
socialism  therein,  the  one  country  in  Europe,  excluding 
Russia,  which  is  most  under  the  sway  of  old  influences.1 
Social  development  in  Germany  is,  in  fact,  proceeding 
unevenly.  It  is  advanced  as  regards  ideas,  but  in  arrear 
as  regards  practice ;  and  such  a  situation  does  not 
offer  the  most  favourable  conditions  for  estimating  the 
character  and  the  destiny  of  the  movement  with  which 
the  extreme  party  in  that  country  is  identified. 

Again,  in  the  United  States  of  America,  where  we 
have  the  most  typical  Democracy  our  civilisation  has 
produced,  we  are  also  under  some  disadvantage  in  the 
study  of  the  forces  that  lie  behind  modern  socialism. 
The  social  question  in  America  is,  in  all  essential  respects, 
the  same  question  as  in  any  other  part  of  our  Western 
civilisation.  It  is  probable  too  that  nowhere  else 
will  the  spirit  which  is  behind  socialism  measure  itself 
with  greater  freedom  from  disturbing  influences  against 

1  Vide  EconomitU  Franfais,  u  Influence  of  Civilisation  on  the 
Movement  of  Population,"  by  P.  Leroy-Beaulieu,  20th  and  27th  Septem- 
ber 1890. 


vin  MODERN  SOCIALISM  197 

certain  opposing  forces  which  are  the  peculiar  product 
of  our  modern  free  communities,  than  in  that  country. 
Yet  the  special  conditions  of  "newness"  which  are  present 
largely  interfere  to  prevent  the  essential  character 
of  the  social  question  as  a  phase  of  an  orderly  develop- 
ment which  has  been  long  in  progress,  from  being  so 
clearly  distinguished  in  the  United  States,  and,  therefore, 
from  being  so  profitably  studied  there  as  elsewhere. 

Taking  all  these  considerations  into  account  we  shall 
probably  not  be  able  to  do  better  than  to  follow 
the  lead  of  Marx  in  choosing  England  as  the  best 
country  in  which  to  study  the  developments  of  the 
modern  spirit.  We  may  do  so,  not  only  for  the  reason 
which  influenced  Marx,  namely,  that  it  is  the  land  in 
which  modern  capitalism  and  industrialism  obtained  their 
earliest  and  fullest  expression  ;  but  also  because,  in  this 
country,  the  process  of  social  development  has  been  less 
obscured  by  local  causes  and  less  interrupted  by  disturb- 
ing events.  It  has,  on  the  whole,  proceeded  by  regular, 
orderly,  and  successful  stages  in  the  past,  and  it  shows 
no  signs  of  weakening  or  cessation  in  the  present.  For 
these  reasons  it  would  appear  that  the  relationship  of 
the  present  to  the  past  and  the  future  may  be  more 
profitably  studied  in  England  that  anywhere  else  in  our 
Western  Civilisation. 

Now  there  is  an  aspect  of  English  political  life  at 
the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century  which  will,  not  im- 
probably, at  a  later  period,  absorb  the  attention  of  the 
historian.  This  is  the  remarkable  change  that  at  the 
present  time  is  slowly  and  silently  taking  place  within 
that  great  political  party  which  has  led  the  van  of 
progress  during  the  past  one  hundred  and  fifty  years, 
and  which,  during  the  lifetime  of  the  last  few  genera- 
tions, has  added  to  the  statute-book  a  list  of  progressive 


198  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

measures  that,  taken  all  together,  constitutes  in  effect 
one  of  the  greatest  revolutions  through  which  any 
country  has  passed  in  so  brief  a  period.  At  first 
sight  the  change  in  progress  has  all  the  appearance 
of  being  a  process  of  disintegration,  and  one  of  its 
results  for  the  time  being  must  undoubtedly  be  to 
strengthen,  in  some  measure,  the  opposing  ranks.  It 
is  not  that  the  party  of  progress  has  been  rent  with 
feuds,  or  that  its  strength  has  been  undermined  by 
malign  influences.  On  the  contrary,  not  only  has  it 
fought  a  good  fight,  but  it  has  kept  the  faith.  It  is 
rather  that  events  appear  to  have  outgrown  the  faith ; 
and  slowly  and  almost  imperceptibly  the  depressing  and 
dispiriting  feeling  has  spread  throughout  the  ranks  that 
the  old  watchwords  are  losing  their  meaning,  and  that 
the  party  is  at  length  confronted  with  problems  which 
the  well-tried  formulae  of  the  past  have  no  power  to  solve. 
The  unusual  and  exceptional  nature  of  the  crisis 
through  which  political  life  in  England  is  passing  at 
the  present  time,  is  only  brought  into  greater  promi- 
nence on  a  closer  view.  It  may  be  observed  that  the 
development  which  the  Liberal  party  has  been  work- 
ing out  in  English  public  life  throughout  the  nine- 
teenth century  has  been  but  the  latest  phase  of  that 
great  social  movement,  the  progress  of  which  we  traced 
in  the  last  chapter  throughout  the  history  of  our 
Western  civilisation ;  and  in  this  stage  it  has  at  length 
almost  accomplished  the  emancipation  of  the  individual 
and  the  establishment  of  political  equality  throughout 
the  entire  social  organisation.  Since  the  early  part  of 
the  century  we  have  had,  for  instance,  in  England  a 
series  of  measures  following  each  other  at  short  intervals 
extending  the  political  franchise  until  it  now  nearly 
includes  the  adult  male  population.  Side  by  side  with 


vin  MODERN  SOCIALISM  199 

these  we  have  had  a  number  of  measures  emancipating 
trade  and  commerce  from  the  control  of  the  privileged 
classes,  who,  under  the  cover  of  protective  laws,  made 
largely  in  their  own  interests,  were  enabled  to  tax  the 
community  for  their  benefit. 

In  like  manner,  during  the  century,  a  long  list  of 
measures  has  aimed  at  the  curtailment  and  abolition  of 
class  privileges.  Local  popularly-elected  bodies  of  all 
kinds  have  been  everywhere  created,  the  tendency  of 
which  has  been  to  greatly  restrict,  and  even  to  extinguish, 
the  undue  local  influence  previously  exercised  by  wealth. 
The  voting  power  of  the  property-owning  classes  has 
been  gradually  curtailed  until  it  has  been  reduced  almost 
to  the  level  of  the  humblest  class  of  citizens.  The 
state  services  have  been  thrown  open,  instead  of  being 
practically  reserved  for  the  friends  of  the  privileged 
classes;  all  comers  have  been  placed  on  a  footing  of 
equality,  and  unexampled  purity  of  administration  has 
been  secured  throughout  the  public  services.  There 
has  been  also  a  great  number  of  measures  which  have 
aimed  at  rendering  this  state  of  political  equality,  not 
only  theoretical,  but  real  and  effective.  The  extension 
of  the  franchise  has  been  accompanied  by  measures  like 
the  Ballot  Act  and  the  Bribery  Acts,  intended  to  pro- 
tect the  weakest  and  poorest  class  of  the  people  from 
being  interfered  with  in  the  exercise  of  their  political 
rights ;  and,  lastly,  we  have  had  a  succession  of  Educa- 
tion Acts  which  have  aimed  at  qualifying  every  citizen 
to  understand  and  value  for  himself  his  rights  and 
position  as  a  member  of  a  free  community. 

It  has  to  be  specially  noted  now  that  the  political 
doctrine  which  lay  behind  all  this  extensive  list  of 
reforms  has  had  certain  clearly  -  defined  limitations. 
The  acknowledged  aim  of  the  political  party,  under 


200  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

whose  influence  or  direction  most  of  these  measures 
were  carried,  has  always  been  kept  clearly  in  the  fore- 
ground. It  has  been  to  secure  equal  political  rights 
for  all.  The  first  article  of  faith  behind  this  programme 
was  that,  this  end  being  secured,  the  highest  good  of 
the  community  was  then  to  be  secured  by  allowing  the 
individuals  to  work  out  their  own  social  salvation  (or 
damnation)  amid  the  free  and  unrestricted  play  of 
natural  forces  within  the  community,  hampered  by  the 
least  possible  interference  from  government.  It  has 
been  held  in  England  by  the  progressive  party,  as  a 
fundamental  principle,  that  "a  people  among  whom 
there  is  no  habit  of  spontaneous  action  for  a  collective 
interest — who  look  habitually  to  their  government  to 
command  or  prompt  them  in  all  matters  of  joint-con- 
cern, who  expect  to  have  everything  done  for  them 
in  all  matters  of  joint-concern,  who  expect  to  have 
everything  done  for  them  except  what  can  be  made  an 
affair  of  mere  habit  and  routine — have  their  faculties 
only  half  developed ;  their  education  is  defective  in  one 
of  its  most  important  branches."  *  The  end  consistently 
aimed  at  was,  therefore,  the  "  restricting  to  the  narrowest 
compass  the  intervention  of  a  public  authority  in  the 
business  of  the  community."8  Mill  urged  with  em- 
phasis that  the  onus  of  making  out  of  a  strong  case  in 
respect  of  this  intervention,  should  further  be  placed, 
not  on  those  who  resisted  it,  but  on  those  who  recom- 
mended it,  and  he  insisted  without  compromise  that 
"  letting  alone  should  be  the  general  practice,"  and  that 
"  every  departure  from  it,  unless  required  by  some 
great  good,  is  a  certain  evil."8 

Such  has  been  the  great  English  political  doctrine  of 

1  Princvplet  of  Political  Economy,  J.  S.  Mill,  Book  v.  chap.  xi. 
2  Ibid.  »  Ibid. 


vni  MODERN  SOCIALISM  201 

Laissez-faire.  To  the  development,  expansion,  and 
application  thereof,  one  of  the  most  distinguished  group 
of  political  leaders  and  social,  political,  and  philosophical 
writers  that  any  country  has  ever  produced,  has  for 
a  long  period  contributed.  Under  it  the  unexampled 
English  expansion  of  the  nineteenth  century  has  taken 
place,  and  it  has  undoubtedly  been  an  important  factor 
in  producing  that  expansion.  Taken  with  all  its  faults 
and  limitations,  it  has  been  one  of  the  most  char- 
acteristic products  of  the  political  genius  of  the  English- 
speaking  peoples.  Its  spirit  still  pervades  the  entire 
political  life  of  all  the  lands  into  which  these  peoples 
have  carried  their  institutions.  In  what  respect,  there- 
fore, have  we  outgrown  it?  What  is  the  import  in 
relation  thereto  of  that  socialistic  movement  which  is 
now  so  deeply  affecting  the  minds  of  certain  sections  of 
the  population  amongst  the  Western  peoples  ?  Whither 
beyond  it  is  that  evolution  which  we  have  traced 
throughout  the  history  of  these  peoples  now  carrying  us  ? 
In  order  to  answer  these  questions  it  is  neces- 
sary to  scrutinise  the  forces  at  work  in  English 
political  life  at  the  present  time.  We  have  already 
found  that  the  real  impelling  force  which  lies  behind 
the  political  advance  that  we,  in  common,  with  most 
European  peoples,  have  been  making  in  recent  times, 
has  its  seat  in  the  development  the  altruistic  feel- 
ings have  attained  amongst  us,  and  in  the  deepening 
and  softening  of  character  which  has  accompanied  the 
change.  It  is  these  feelings  that  have  found  a  vehicle 
for  expression  in  that  body  of  public  opinion  which,  mov- 
ing slowly  in  the  past  but  more  quickly  in  our  own  time, 
has  brought  about  the  gradual  political  emancipation  of 
the  individual  from  the  rule  of  the  privileged  classes. 
What  we  have,  however,  now  to  particularly  note,  is 


202  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

that  the  movement  which  has  carried  us  thus  far  shows 
no  signs  of  staying  or  abating ;  the  same  feelings  con- 
tinue to  supply  an  impelling  force  thai  threatens  to 
drive  us,  and  that  actually  is  driving  us,  onwards  far 
beyond  the  limits  which  the  political  doctrines  of  the 
recent  past  prescribed. 

It  may  be  noticed  in  England  that  the  political 
emancipation  of  the  masses,  the  last  stage  of  which  in 
this  country  has  occupied  almost  an  entire  century,  is 
now  well-nigh  accomplished.  The  shreds  of  political 
measures  necessary  to  complete  it — which  are  all  that 
those  who  adhere  to  the  progressive  faith  of  the  past 
have  to  offer  —  form  so  slender  a  programme  as 
scarcely  to  excite  any  real  enthusiasm  amongst  the 
followers  of  those  leaders  whose  mental  horizon  is  still 
bounded  by  the  old  ideals  of  the  political  enfranchise- 
ment of  the  people.  On  the  other  hand,  an  im- 
mense number  of  larger  and  greatly  more  important 
questions  have  arisen  which  press  for  attention.  In  the 
unparalleled  expansion  which  has  taken  place,  new  and 
vast  problems  that  the  old  leaders  did  not  foresee 
have  been  born,  and  it  may  be  noticed  that  the  free  and 
unrestricted  play  of  forces  within  the  community  is 
producing  results  against  which  the  public  conscience, 
still  moved  by  the  altruistic  feelings,  has  been  slowly 
but  surely  rising  in  revolt. 

In  England,  within  the  last  decade,  descriptions  of 
how  the  poor  live  in  our  great  cities,  and  the  revela- 
tions made  through  inquiries  like  that  conducted  by  the 
Sweating  Commission,  or  more  recently  through  that 
instituted  on  so  extensive  a  scale  by  Mr.  Charles  Booth 
into  the  condition  of  the  London  poor,  have  deeply 
stirred  the  public  mind.  It  is  being  gradually  realised 
that  there  are  great  masses  of  the  people  who,  amid  the 


vin  MODERN  SOCIALISM  203 

unrestricted  operation  of  social  and  economic  forces, 
and  under  a  regime  of  political  liberty,  have  never  had 
any  fair  opportunity  in  life  at  all,  and  who  have  been 
from  the  beginning  inevitably  condemned  to  the  condi- 
tions of  a  degraded  existence.  It  seems  to  be  already 
generally  felt  that  something  more  than  mere  political 
liberty  is  demanded  here. 

Again,  trade  and  commerce  have  been  to  a  large 
extent  freed  from  the  control  of  the  privileged  classes 
of  the  past ;  but,  in  the  unrestricted  expansion  which 
has  followed,  the  capitalist  classes  appear  to  have  in- 
herited a  very  large  share  of  the  rights  and  powers  of 
their  predecessors.  They  have  even  become  possessed 
of  others  in  addition,  while  the  personal  sense  of  rela- 
tionship which  introduced  a  modifying  sense  of  duty  in 
the  past,  tends  to  become  more  and  more  attenuated. 
Political  liberty  has  not  enabled  the  poorer  classes  to 
make  headway  against  the  enormous  influence  which 
these  classes  wield,  to  the  extent  to  which  many  of  the 
older  reformers  expected.  By  the  combination  of  the 
capitalist  classes  into  rings,  trusts,  syndicates,  and  like 
associations  for  the  universal  control  of  production  and 
the  artificial  keeping  up  of  prices,  the  community  finds 
the  general  welfare  threatened  by  a  complication 
which  the  reformers  of  the  past  can  scarcely  be  said  to 
have  counted  upon.  "We  have  also  great  organisations 
and  combinations  of  labour  against  these  capitalist 
classes  whereby  the  life  of  the  community  is  disturbed 
and  disorganised  to  a  serious  extent,  and  to  which  it 
seems  to  be  increasingly  difficult  to  apply  the  old  doc- 
trine of  the  restricted  nature  of  the  duty  of  the  state. 
It  is  evident,  moreover,  that  in  these  recurring  struggles 
the  combatants,  if  left  to  themselves,  are  often  unequally 
matched ;  for  the  weapon  on  one  side  is  merely  the  power 


204  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

to  reduce  profits,  while  on  the  other  it  is  the  right  to 
impose  actual  want  and  hunger  on  large  numbers  of  our 
fellow-creatures.  We  have,  therefore,  public  opinion 
tending  more  and  more  to  side  with  the  inherently 
weaker  cause,  and,  under  the  stimulus  of  the  altruistic 
feelings,  coming  to  propose  measures  that  leave  the 
laissez-faire  doctrine  of  the  past  far  behind. 

It  may  be  observed  also,  that  the  public  opinion, 
which  earlier  in  the  century  regarded  with  suspicion  (as 
tending  to  the  infringement  of  the  prevailing  theories 
as  to  the  restricted  nature  of  the  duty  of  the  state)  even 
the  attempt  to  regulate  the  hours  of  women  and  children 
in  factories  and  mines,  has  already  come  to  view  as 
within  the  realm  of  reasonable  discussion  proposals  to 
strengthen  the  position  of  the  working  classes  by  enforcing 
a  legal  eight  hours  day  and  even  a  minimum  wage  in 
certain  occupations.  The  public  conscience,  which  is 
moving  fast  in  these  matters,  has  all  the  appearance  of 
being  destined  to  move  far.  We  are  not  without  grow- 
ing evidence  that  our  education  laws  will  not  stop  with 
providing  the  bare  rudiments  of  education  for  the 
people,  nor  with  providing  them  on  the  grounds  men- 
tioned by  Mill : — that  others  are  liable  to  suffer  seriously 
from  the  consequences  of  ignorance  and  want  of  educa- 
tion in  their  fellow-citizens.1  Nor  would  indications 
seem  to  show  that  we  have  reached  finality  in  our  poor 
laws  in  simply  guaranteeing  the  bare  necessities  of 
existence. 

We  have  evidence  everywhere  along  the  line,  not 
only  of  a  movement  towards  the  general  abandonment 
of  the  doctrine  of  the  non-interference  of  the  state  in 
social  matters,  but  of  a  more  significant  tendency  that 
seems  to  be  associated  with  it — a  tendency  to  strengthen 

1  Vide  Principlet  of  Political  Economy,  Book  v.  chap,  zi 


viij  MODERN  SOCIALISM  205 

and  equip  at  the  general  expense  the  lower  and  weaker 
against  the  higher  and  wealthier  classes  of  the  com- 
munity. We  have,  it  is  evident,  already  progressed  a 
considerable  distance  beyond  the  doctrine,  that  the  end 
of  endeavour  is  to  secure  political  equality  for  all.  Yet 
whither  are  we  travelling  ? 

Another  feature  of  the  times  which  we  may  notice 
is,  that  under  the  outward  appearance  of  action,  the 
gi  iat  political  party  which  has  carried  progress  so  far 
in  England  stands  in  reality  doubting  and  confused  in 
mind.  It  moves,  it  is  true,  but  rather  because  it  is 
thrust  forward ;  the  enthusiasm,  the  robust  faith,  the 
clearly  -  defined  conviction  that  marked  its  advance 
through  the  early  and  middle  decades  of  the  nineteenth 
century  seem  to  be  wanting.  The  ranks  move,  but 
irresolutely.  They  still  appear  to  wait  for  the  vibrant 
call  of  a  leader  upon  whom  a  larger  faith  has  descended. 

While  the  party  of  progress  in  England  advances 
thus  falteringly,  and  with  eyes  cast  backwards  rather 
than  forwards,  the  most  remarkable  political  phenomenon 
of  the  time  is  rising  into  prominence  in  another  quarter. 
The  socialist  movement  which  has  languished  through 
various  phases,  and  fitfully  occupied  attention  in  various 
parts  of  Europe  since  the  beginning  of  the  century,  has 
entered  on  a  new  stage,  and  has  taken  the  field  with  a 
definite  political  programme.  The  leaders  of  the  move- 
ment, no  longer  ignoring  politics  and  political  methods, 
now  appear  to  have  set  before  themselves  the  task  of 
reforming  the  state  through  the  state.  The  Utopian 
projects  which  distinguished  the  writings  of  its  earlier 
advocates  have  disappeared,  and  even  che  essential 
ideals  of  the  movement  tend  to  be  kept  in  the  back- 
ground, to  be  discussed  amongst  the  faithful  as  the 
ultimate  goal  rather  than  with  the  adversary  as  the 


206  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

immediate  end  of  endeavour.  We  have  not  now  to 
deal  with  mere  abstract  and  transcendental  theories, 
but  with  a  clearly-defined  movement  in  practical  politics 
appealing  to  some  of  the  deepest  instincts  of  a  large 
proportion  of  the  voting  population,  and  professing  to 
pro-  ide  a  programme  likely  in  the  future  to  stand  more 
acf  more  on  its  own  merits  in  opposition  to  all  other 
programmes  whatever. 

Yet  more  remarkable  still,  one  of  the  signs  of  the 
times  in  England  is  the  attitude  of  the  advanced  wing 
of  the  great  progressive  party  of  the  past  to  this  new 
movement.  It  appears  to  be  slowly  wheeling  its  forces 
into  line  with  those  of  this  socialist  party.  To  the  be- 
wilderment of  many  of  the  old  leaders,  that  party  whose 
central  article  of  political  faith  in  the  past,  namely,  the 
untrammelled  freedom  of  the  individual,  has  given  a 
distinctive  colouring  to  the  political  life  of  the  whole 
English-speaking  world,  is  now  asked  apparently  to  turn 
its  face  in  a  direction  opposite  to  that  in  which  it  has 
been  previously  set,  and  contrary  to  that  in  which  the 
evolution  of  our  civilisation  has,  so  far,  progressed.  The' 
advance  in  the  new  direction,  it  appears  to  those  who 
still  hold  to  the  old  faith,  must  inevitably  involve  the 
weakening,  if  not  the  ultimate  abandonment,  of  the 
principles  for  which  the  party  has  fought  so  long  and 
so  sturdily  in  the  past.  The  individualism  which  they 
held  so  highly,  and  which  has  been  so  markedly  associated 
with  the  stress  and  energy  of  life  amongst  the  advanced 
peoples,  must  apparently,  if  the  new  views  are  to  prevail, 
be  given  up.  The  play  of  the  competitive  forces  which 
has  so  largely  contributed  to  the  extraordinary  expan- 
sion of  the  past,  must  be,  it  appears  to  them,  not  only 
restricted,  but  perhaps  ultimately  suspended  in  an  era  of 
soul-deadening  and  energy-restricting  socialism  on  the 


MODERN  SOCIALISM  207 


one  side,  and  general  confusion  and  political  insolvency 
on  the  other. 

The  question  which  now  presents  itself  is  : — What  is 
the  significance  of  this  situation,  and  of  that  remarkable 
period  of  transition  through  which  political  life  in  Eng- 
land, as  in  most  countries  where  our  civilisation  has 
reached  an  advanced  stage,  is  passing  ?  Let  us  proceed, 
as  a  means  of  throwing  light  on  the  subject,  to  ex- 
amine the  leading  features  of  the  most  prevalent  and 
influential  form  of  socialism  at  the  present  day, 
namely,  the  "  scientific  socialism  "  of  the  German  school 
more  particularly  associated  with  the  names  of  two 
of  its  exponents,  Marx  and  Engels. 

One  of  the  first  things  to  be  noticed  by  any  one  who 
undertakes  an  examination  of  the  socialistic  phenomena 
of  our  time,  is  the  remarkable  number  of  schemes,  pro- 
jects, and  measures,  loosely  described  as  socialist  or 
socialistic,  that  have  nothing  whatever  of  an  essentially 
socialist  character  about  them.  Without  going  so  far 
as  to  accept  Proudhon's  definition  of  socialism  as  all 
aspiration  towards  the  improvement  of  society,  a  large 
number  of  persons  appear  to  make  only  a  slight  reserva- 
tion, and  regard  it  as  all  aspiration  towards  the  improve- 
ment of  society  by  society.  True  socialism  has,  however, 
one  invariable  characteristic  by  which  it  may  be  always 
recognised,  whether  it  take  the  form  advocated  by  the 
more  prevalent  German  school,  or  by  that  anarchist 
section  represented  by  Proudhon  and  Bakunin,  whose 
ideal,  despite  their  title  and  methods,  is  really  a  morally 
perfect  state  in  which  government,  law,  and  police  would 
be  unnecessary.  True  socialism  has  always  one  definite 
object  in  view,  up  to  which  all  its  proposals  directly  or 
indirectly  lead.  This  is  the  final  suspension  of  that 
personal  struggle  for  existence  which  has  been  waged, 


208  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

not  only  from  the  beginning  of  society,  but,  in  one  form 
or  another,  from  the  beginning  of  life.1 

Although  Marx  prudently  abstained  from  putting 
forward  any  detailed  scheme  of  the  social  order  which 
he  held  was  to  supersede  the  present  capitalist  and  com- 
petitive era,  he,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  deliberately 
leads  us  up  to  this  culmination.  The  attainment  of  the 
same  object  is  clearly  put  forward  by  Engels  as  the 
avowed  end  of  endeavour.  As  a  later  example  we  have 
the  same  idea  in  Mr.  Bellamy's  artistic  model  of  a 
socialist  community  in  working  order, — a  community  in 
which  children  are  to  become  entitled  to  an  equal  share 
of  the  national  wealth  in  virtue  of  being  born,  in  which 
the  prices  of  staples  are  to  grow  less  year  by  year,  in 
which  there  is  to  be  no  state  legislature  and  no  legisla- 
tion, in  which  there  are  to  be  no  police  and  no  criminal 
classes,  but  in  which  it  can  be  said  at  last  that  "  society 
rests  on  its  base,  and  is  in  as  little  need  of  support  as 
the  everlasting  hills."8 

Now,  directly  we  come  to  examine  these  schemes,  a 
somewhat  startling  admission  has  to  be  made,  an  ad- 
mission, however,  for  which  those  who  have  followed  the 
argument  developed  through  the  preceding  chapters 

1  The  existence  of  an  inherent  principle  of  antagonism  between  true 
socialism  and  that  class  of  proposals  which  currently  pass  under  the  name 
of  "  State  Socialism "  was  uncompromisingly  maintained  by  Herr 
Leibknecht  in  his  speech  at  the  Social  Democratic  Congress  held  at 
Berlin  in  November  1892.  "Social  democracy,"  said  Herr  Leibknecht, 
"has  nothing  in  common  with  the  so-called  state  socialism,  a  system  of 
half-measures  dictated  by  fear,  and  aiming  merely  at  undermining  the 
hold  of  social  democracy  over  the  working  classes  by  petty  concessions 
and  palliatives.  Such  measures  social  democracy  has  never  disdained  to 
promote  and  to  approve,  but  it  accepts  them  only  as  small  instalments, 
which  cannot  arrest  its  onward  march  towards  the  regeneration  of  the 
state  and  of  society  on  socialistic  principles.  Social  democracy  is 
essentially  revolutionary :  state  socialism  is  conservative.  As  such  they 
are  irreconcilably  opposed." 

8  Vide  Looking  Backward,  by  Edward  Bellamy. 


VIII  MUD&RN  SOCIALISM  209- 

will  be  prepared.  It  is  that  the  arguments  by  which 
their  advocates  lead  up  to  them  are  unanswered,  and 
even  unanswerable  from  the  point  of  view  from  which 
the  greater  number  of  their  critics  have  assailed  them. 
This  admission  may  appear  the  more  remarkable,  when 
it  has  to  be  asserted  in  the  same  breath  that  it  is 
probably  true  that  in  all  the  literature  which  socialism 
has  produced,  no  serious  attempt  has  been  made,  and 
that  probably  no  serious  attempt  can  be  made,  to  deal 
with  even  the  initial  difficulties  in  the  way  of  the  con- 
tinued success  of  a  society  organised  on  a  socialist  basis. 
At  the  outset,  underneath  all  socialist  ideals,  there 
yawns  the  problem  of  population.  Progress  so  far  in 
life  has  always  been,  as  we  have  seen,  necessarily 
associated  with  the  inexorable  natural  law  over  which 
man  has  no  control,  and  over  which  he  can  never  hope 
to  have  any  control,  which  renders  selection  necessary ; 
and  which,  therefore,  keeps  up  the  stress  of  life  by  com- 
pelling every  type,  as  the  first  condition  of  progress,  to- 
continually  press  upon  and  tend  to  outrun  the  condi- 
tions of  existence  for  the  time  being.  One  of  the  funda- 
mental problems  which  has,  therefore,  confronted  every 
form  of  civilisation  that  has  arisen,  and  which  must 
confront  every  form  that  will  ever  exist,  is  that  arising 
from  the  tendency  of  human  reason  to  come  into  conflict 
with  nature  over  this  requirement.  Under  the  Utopias 
of  socialism,  one  of  two  things  must  happen  :  either  this 
increase  must  be  restricted  or  not.  If  it  be  not  re- 
stricted, and  selection  is  allowed  to  continue,  then  the 
whole  foundations  of  such  a  fabric  as  Mr.  Bellamy  has 
constructed  are  bodily  removed.  Even  if  we  imagine  the 
competitive  forces  suspended  for  a  time  between  the 
members  of  the  community,  the  society  as  a  whole  must, 
sooner  or  later,  come  into  active  competition  with  other 


210  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

societies,  and  so  begin  once  more  one  of  the  phases 
through  which  human  society  has  already  passed. 

But  if,  on  the  other  hand,  the  increase  of  population 
is  to  be  restricted,  a  difficulty  no  less  important  presents 
itself.  A  considerable  number  of  persons  have  contem- 
plated the  action  of  a  new  restrictive  influence  (although 
it  operated  widely  in  the  ancient  civilisations)  in  public 
opinion  and  the  conditions  of  life  under  the  new  order, 
anticipating,  with  a  lady  writer  who  has  given  attention 
to  the  subject  in  England,  the  growth  of  a  feeling  of 
intellectual  superiority  to  "  this  absurd  sacrifice  to  their 
children,  of  generation  after  generation  of  grown  people." l 
But  in  whatever  way  restriction  which  would  limit  the 
population  to  the  actual  conditions  of  life  might  be 
effected,  it  is  not  necessary,  after  what  has  been  said 
in  previous  chapters  as  to  the  physiological  conditions 
of  the  process  which  has  been  working  itself  out  through- 
out life — and  nowhere  more  effectively  and  thoroughly 
than  in  human  history — to  deal  at  length  with  the  fate 
of  any  people  amongst  whom  the  restriction  was  prac- 
tised. The  conditions  of  selection  being  suspended,  such 
a  people  could  not  in  any  case  avoid  progressive  de- 
generation even  if  we  could  imagine  them  escaping  more 
direct  consequences.  In  ordinary  circumstances  they 
would  indubitably  receive  short  shrift  when  confronted 
with  the  vigorous  and  aggressive  life  of  societies  where, 
other  things  being  equal,  selection  and  the  stress  and 
rivalry  of  existence  were  still  continued. 

Again,  a  class  of  objections,  now  being  temperately 
discussed  in  England  and  Germany,  according  to  which 
a  state  organised  on  a  socialist  basis  would  find  more 
immediate  difficulties,  hindrances,  and  drawbacks,  which 
would  place  it  at  a  manifest  disadvantage  with  other 

1  Mrs.  Mona  Caiid,  Nineteenth  Century,  May  1892. 


vui  MODERN  SOCIALISM  21 1 

communities,  have  never  been  seriously  dealt  with  by 
socialist  writers.  The  enormous  pressure,  capable  of 
being  exercised  by  the  competitive  system  at  its  best, 
operating  continually  to  ensure  the  most  economic  and 
efficient  system  of  production  ;  the  accompanying  tend- 
ency of  the  best  men  to  find  the  places  for  which  they 
are  best  fitted ;  the  tendency  towards  the  free  utilisa- 
tion of  the  powers  of  such  men  to  the  fullest  degree  in 
the  direction  of  invention,  discovery,  and  improvement, 
coupled  with  the  difficulty  of  finding  (human  nature 
being  what  it  is)  any  thoroughly  efficient  stimulus 
for  the  whole  of  the  population  to  exert  itself  to  the 
highest  degree  when  the  main  wants  of  life  were  secure, 
these  are  all  considerations  which  would,  in  an  earlier 
stage,  tell  enormously  against  a  socialist  community 
when  matched  in  the  general  competition  of  life  against 
other  communities  where  the  stress  of  life  was  greater. 

It  will  not  help  us  even  if  there  are  to  be  no  com- 
peting societies,  and  if,  in  the  contemplated  era  of 
socialism,  the  whole  human  family  without  distinction  of 
race  or  colour  is  to  be  included  in  a  federation  within 
which  the  competitive  forces  are  to  be  suspended.  We 
may  draw  such  a  draft  on  our  imagination,  but  our 
common-sense,  which  has  to  deal  with  materials  as  they 
exist,  refuses  to  honour  it.  We  are  concerned,  not  with 
an  imaginary  being,  but  with  man  as  he  exists,  a  creature 
standing  with  countless  aeons  of  this  competition  behind 
him ;  every  quality  of  his  mind  and  body  (even 
including,  it  must  always  be  remembered,  that  very 
habit  of  generous  thought  for  others  which  gives  heart  to 
the  modern  socialistic  movement)  the  product  of  this 
rivalry,  with  its  meaning  and  allotted  place  therein,  and 
capable  of  finding  its  fullest  and  fittest  employment  only 
in  its  natural  conditions. 


212  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

But  these  are  the  mere  commonplaces  which  only 
bring  us  to  the  crux  of  the  subject.  Impressive  as 
such  considerations  may  be  to  those  who  have  caught 
the  import  of  the  evolutionary  science  of  the  time,  no 
greater  mistake  can  be  made  than  to  think  that  they 
form  any  practical  answer  to  the  arguments  of  those 
\vho  would  lead  us  on  to  socialism.  Why?  For  the 
simple  reason  that,  as  we  have  throughout  insisted, 
men  are  not  now,  and  never  have  been,  in  the  least 
concerned  with,  or  influenced  by,  the  estimates  which 
scientists  or  any  other  class  of  persons  may  form 
of  the  probable  effects  of  their  present  conduct  on 
unborn  generations.  The  motives  which  inspire  their 
present  acts  are  of  quite  a  different  kind.  But  it  is 
these  motives  which  are  shaping  the  course  of  events, 
and  it  is  consequently  with  these,  and  these  only, 
that  we  have  to  deal  if  we  would  gauge  the  character 
and  dimensions  of  the  modern  socialist  movement. 
Let  us  see,  therefore,  in  what  way  the  conception,  of  what 
is  called  scientific  socialism — of  modern  society  develop- 
ing towards  socialism  as  the  result  of  forces  now  actually 
at  work  amongst  us — is  justified  or  the  contrary. 

According  to  Marx  the  dominant  factor  in  the  evolu- 
tion through  which  we  are  passing  is  the  economic  one. 
The  era  in  which  we  are  living  began  in  the  mediaeval 
period  with  the  rise  of  capitalism.  To  understand  what 
capitalism  is — and  few  writers  have  grasped  more 
thoroughly  than  Marx  some  of  the  ultimate  facts  which 
underlie  the  institution  in  the  form  in  which  he  attacked 
it — we  have  to  get  behind  the  superficial  phrases,  and 
some  of  the  errors  of  the  political  economists  of  the  old 
school.  When  we  reach  the  heart  of  the  matter  we  find 
it  to  be,  according  to  Marx,  a  system  by  which  the 
capitalist  is  enabled  to  appropriate  the  surplus  value  of 


viii  MODERN  SOCIALISM  213 

the  work  of  the  labourers,  these  being  able  to  retain  as 
wages  only  what  represents  the  average  subsistence 
necessary  for  themselves  and  their  children  in  keeping 
up  this  supply  of  labour.  There  is  thus  an  inherent 
antagonism  between  the  two  classes. 

As  the  conflict  takes  shape  it  begins  to  develop 
remarkable  features.  At  the  one  pole  we  have  the 
continued  appropriation  and  accumulation  of  surplus 
value,  with  the  ever -increasing  wealth  and  power  of 
those  in  whose  hands  it  is  concentrated.  At  the  other 
end  we  have  the  progressive  enslavement  and  degrada- 
tion of  the  exploited  classes.  As  the  development 
continues,  the  workers,  on  the  one  hand,  gradually  come 
to  recognise  their  position  as  a  class  and  become 
possessed  of  a  sense  of  their  common  interests.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  competition  amongst  the  capitalist  class 
is  great  and  continually  growing ;  the  larger  capitalists 
gradually  extinguish  the  smaller  ones,  and  wealth 
becomes  accumulated  in  fewer  and  fewer  hands.  To 
quote  Marx's  words : — "  Along  with  the  constantly 
diminishing  number  of  the  magnates  of  capital,  who 
usurp  and  monopolise  all  advantages  of  this  process  of 
transformation,  grow  the  mass  of  misery,  oppression, 
slavery,  degradation,  exploitation ;  but  with  this,  too, 
grows  the  revolt  of  the  working  class,  a  class  always 
increasing  in  numbers  and  disciplined,  united,  organised 
by  the  very  mechanism  of  the  process  of  capitalist  pro- 
duction itself.  The  monopoly  of  capital  becomes  a  fetter 
upon  the  mode  of  production,  which  has  sprung  up  and 
flourished  along  with  and  under  it.  Centralisation  of 
the  means  of  production  and  socialisation  of  labour,  at 
last,  reach  a  point  when  they  become  incompatible  with 
their  capitalist  integument.  This  integument  is  burst 
asunder.  The  knell  of  capitalist  private  property 


214  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

sounds."1  That  is  to  say,  the  state  of  things  becomes 
at  length  intolerable ;  there  is  anarchy  in  production, 
accompanied  by  constantly-recurring  commercial  crises ; 
and  the  incapacity  of  the  capitalist  classes  to  manage  the 
productive  forces  being  manifest,  public  opinion  at  last 
comes  to  a  head.  The  organised  workers  seize  possession 
o.f  the  means  of  production,  transforming  them  into 
public  property,  and  socialistic  production  becomes  hence- 
forward possible. 

The  transformation  supposed  to  be  effected  in  the 
latter  stage  of  the  movement  is  thus  described  by 
Frederick  Engels :  "  With  the  seizing  of  the  means  of 
production  by  society,  production  of  commodities  is  done 
away  with,  and,  simultaneously,  the  mastery  of  the 
product  over  the  producer.  Anarchy  in  social  produc- 
tion is  replaced  by  systematic,  definite  organisation. 
The  struggle  for  individual  existence  disappears.  Then, 
for  the  first  time,  man,  in  a  certain  sense,  is  finally 
marked  off  from  the  rest  of  the  animal  kingdom,  and 
emerges  from  mere  animal  conditions  of  existence  into 
really  human  ones.  The  whole  sphere  of  the  conditions 
which  environ  man,  and  which  have  hitherto  ruled  man, 
now  comes  under  the  dominion  and  control  of  man,  who 
now,  for  the  first  time,  becomes  the  real  conscious  lord 
of  Nature,  because  he  has  now  become  master  of  his 
own  social  organisation.  ...  It  is  the  ascent  of  man 
from  the  kingdom  of  necessity  to  the  kingdom  of 
freedom." 2 

This  is  the  Marx -Engels  theory  of  our  modern 
civilisation,  and  of  the  denouement  to  which  it  is  hasten- 


1  Capital,  by  Karl  Man,   English    translation  (Swan   Sonnenschein 
&  Co.,  1887),  vol.  ii  pp.  788,  789. 

2  Socialism,   Utopian  and  Scientific,  by  Frederick  Engels,  translated 
by  Edward  Aveling,  1892. 


vin  MODERN  SOCIALISM  215 

ing,  so  far  as  justice  can  be  done  to  it  in  so  brief  a 
summary.  It  is  a  conception,  whatever  its  short- 
comings, of  power  and  originality — displaying,  despite 
its  errors,  a  deep  knowledge  of  social  forces  and  a 
masterful  grasp  of  some  of  the  first  principles  under- 
lying our  complex  modern  life. 

Now,  the  first  fact  which  it  is  necessary  to  keep 
clearly  before  the  mind  in  dealing  with  this  theory  of 
society  is,  that  this  relationship  of  capital  to  labour  which 
Marx  has  described,  is  nothing  more  than  the  present- 
day  expression  of  a  social  relationship  which  has  existed 
throughout  the  greater  part  of  human  history.  There 
is  nothing  new  or  special  about  the  fact  which  underlies 
the  theory  of  surplus  value  ;  nor  is  it  peculiar  to  the 
capitalist  era  any  more  than  to  any  other  era.  We  had 
what  corresponds  to  the  appropriation  of  the  surplus 
value  of  the  work  of  the  lower  masses  of  the  people  by 
the  ruling  classes  in  all  the  early  military  societies, 
in  the  Greek  States,  and  under  the  Roman  Eepublic 
and  Empire.  We  had  it  in  a  marked  form  under  the 
institution  of  slavery,  and  it  continued  under  the  feudal 
system  which  preceded  the  rise  of  modern  capitalism. 
With  the  discoveries  of  science,  and  their  application  to 
the  wants  of  life,  we  have  it  only  under  another  phase 
in  the  resulting  era  of  expansion  and  capitalism  in 
which  we  are  now  living.1 

1  The  younger  school  of  economists  in  England  have  not  yet  quite 
done  justice  to  Marx's  conception  of  the  state  of  capitalistic  society  which 
he  describes.  It  is  quite  true,  as  Professor  Marshall  remarks  ( "  Some 
Aspects  of  Competition,"  Journal  Boy.  Stat.  Soc.  December  1890),  that 
socialist  schemes  founded  thereon  "seem  to  be  vitiated  by  want  of 
attention  to  the  analysis  which  the  economists  of  the  modern  age  have 
made  of  the  functions  of  the  undertaker  of  business  enterprises,"  and  that 
they  "  seem  to  think  too  much  of  competition  as  the  exploiting  of  labour 
by  capital,  of  the  poor  by  the  wealthy,  and  too  little  of  it  as  the  constant 
experiment  by  the  ablest  men  for  their  several  tasks,  each  trying  to  dis- 
cover a  new  way  in  which  to  attain  some  important  end."  But  it  must 


216  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

But  while  this  fact  must  never  be  lost  sight  of,  it 
must,  at  the  same  time,  be  noticed  that  there  is  a 
development  taking  place  in  this  relationship  of  labour 
to  capital,  a  development  of  the  most  significant  kind 
which  is  likely,  as  time  goes  on,  to  control  and  dominate 
the  entire  political  outlook.  Although  Marx,  it  appears 
to  the  writer,  has  been  quite  mistaken  as  to  the  nature 
of  the  development  which  is  taking  place  in  our  civilisa- 
tion, and  as  to  the  direction  in  which  it  is  carrying  us ; 
it  will,  nevertheless,  in  all  probability  be  recognised  in 
the  future  that  he  has  been  much  nearer  the  truth  in 
regarding,  as  he  did,  the  prevailing  relationship  of  the 
workers  to  the  capitalist  classes,  than  the  hitherto 
dominant  school  of  political  economists  have  been  in 
regarding  it  as  the  natural  and  normal  condition  of  the 
two  parties,  any  disturbance  of  which  must  involve  the 
dislocation  of  the  entire  social  machinery  of  the  modern 
world.  Not  the  least  important  part  of  the  work  which 
Marx  has  already  accomplished  (for  to  the  influence  of 
the  socialist  party  the  change  is  undoubtedly  due)  is 
the  tendency  already  visible  amongst  the  younger  and 
rising  school  of  political  economists,  particularly  in 
England,  to  question  whether  this  relationship  is 
natural  and  normal,  and  whether  the  extraordinary 
powers  and  privileges  which  capital  has  inherited  from 
a  past  order  of  society — powers  begetting,  to  use  words 
of  Professor  Marshall,  "the  cruelty  and  waste  of 
irresponsible  competition  and  the  licentious  use  of 

also  be  kept  well  in  mind — and  the  rising  school  of  economic  science  can 
do  nothing  but  good  in  keeping  the  fact  always  clearly  in  view — that  the 
rights  and  privileges  of  capital  and  wealth  have  hitherto  been  much  more 
than. those  which  necessarily  attach  to  "the  function  of  the  undertaker  of 
business  enterprises"  in  order  to  obtain  the  highest  possible  efficiency. 
Marx  went  much  too  far,  but  the  idea  underlying  his  conception  of  the 
exploitation  of  labour  in  the  past  is,  in  the  main,  sound  and  scientific. 


vni  MODERN  SOCIALISM  217 

wealth," l — constitute  any  necessary  feature  of  the  insti- 
tution of  private  capital  in  enabling  it  to  discharge  the 
beneficial  function  it  is  held  to  be  capable  of  perform- 
ing for  society. 

Now,  the  development  which  Marx  contemplated  is, 
it  may  be  observed,  thoroughly  materialistic ;  it  takes  no 
iocount  of  those  prime  evolutionary  forces  which  lie 
behind  the  whole  process  of  our  social  development. 
The  phenomenon  which  underlies  what  has  been  called 
the  exploitation  of  labour  is,  as  we  have  seen,  in  no  way 
new  or  special  to  our  time.  What  then  is  the  special 
factor  in  modern  life  which  has  enabled  Marx  to  antici- 
pate the  growing  power  of  the  workers,  and  as  a  result 
to  picture  with  some  degree  of  verisimilitude  a  stage  at 
which  it  will  become  irresistible,  and  at  which  they  will 
proceed  to  seize  and  socialise  the  means  of  production  ? 
His  followers  may  reply  that  it  is  the  inherent  tendency 
of  the  process  of  economic  evolution  actually  in  pro- 
gress. Yet  it  is  nothing  of  the  kind.  If  any  of  Marx's 
followers  really  hold  this  view,  they  are  deceiving  them- 
selves. The  economic  problem  per  se  has  no  inherent 
tendency  whatever  which  it  did  not  possess  under  any 
other  phase  of  society,  and  from  the  beginning.  The 
new  factor  in  the  problem  is  one  altogether  outside  of 
and  independent  of  the  economic  situation. 

If  we  look  round  at  the  position  of  the  workers  at 
the  present  day,  and  note  their  relations  to  the  state  and 
to  the  capitalist  class,  it  will  be  seen  that  the  one 
absolutely  new  and  special  feature  which  distinguishes 
these  relationships  now,  as  compared  with  all  past 
periods,  is,  that  the  exploited  classes,  as  the  result  of  an 

1  Journal  of  the  Royal  Statistical  Society,  December  1890,  p.  643. 
Reprint  of  Address  as  President  of  Economic  Section,  British  Association, 
Meeting  September  1890. 


2i8  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

evolution  long  in  progress,  and  still  continuing  with 
unabated  pace,  have  been  admitted  to  the  exercise 
of  political  power  on  a  footing  which  tends  more  and 
more  to  be  one  of  actual  equality  with  those  who  have 
hitherto  held  them  in  subjection.  This  evolution  has 
its  causes  exclusively  in  that  ethical  development,  the 
course  of  which  has  been  traced  in  the  previous  chapter. 
It  is  the  cardinal  and  essential  feature  of  the  situa- 
tion dominating  the  entire  outlook,  but  entirely  inde- 
pendent of  the  economic  question. 

It  will  help  materially  towards  the  clearer  under- 
standing of  the  position  if  this  feature  of  the  situation 
is  kept  well  in  view.  We  may  perceive  the  importance 
of  the  factor  at  once  if  it  is  taken  away.  The 
materialistic  evolution  of  Marx  is  left  without  its 
motive  power.  For,  if  we  are  to  have  only  the  frank 
selfishness  of  the  exploiting  classes  on  the  one  side,  and 
the  equally  materialistic  selfishness  of  the  exploited 
classes  on  the  other,  "  the  inherent  tendency  of  modern 
society  "  disappears.  There  would  remain  nothing  what- 
ever in  the  present  constitution  of  society,  economic  or 
otherwise,  which  would  lead  us  to  expect  any  progress 
towards  the  culmination  which  Marx  describes,  but 
everything  which  would  lead  us  to  anticipate  the 
repetition  of  a  well-worn  tale  of  history.  If  we  are  to 
have  nothing  but  materialistic  selfishness  on  the  one 
side  leagued  against  equally  materialistic  selfishness  on 
the  other,  then  the  power -holding  classes,  being  still 
immeasurably  the  stronger,  would  be  quite  capable  of 
taking  care  of  themselves,  and  would  indeed  be  very 
foolish  if  they  did  not  do  so.  Instead  of  enfranchising, 
educating,  and  raising  the  lower  masses  of  the  people  (as 
they  are  now  doing  as  the  result  of  a  development  which 
Marx  has  not  taken  into  account),  they  would  know 


VIH  MODERN  SOCIALISM  219 

perfectly  well,  as  they  have  always  done  in  the  past,  how 
"  to  keep  the  people  in  their  places,"  i.e.  in  ignorance 
and  political  disability,  all  the  modern  tendency  of  capital 
towards  competition  and  concentration  notwithstanding. 

But,  it  will  be  answered,  the  feature  of  our  times, 
which  there  is  no  gainsaying,  is  the  humanitarian  tend- 
ency in  the  contrary  direction.  The  situation  with 
which  we  have  to  deal  is  one  in  which  this  materialistic 
selfishness  does  not  exist.  Never  in  human  history 
have  the  minds  of  men  been  moved  with  nobler  or 
more  generous  ideas  towards  each  other ;  and  the  whole 
tendency  of  our  civilisation  has  been,  and  continues 
to  be,  to  develop  this  disposition.  Quite  so.  This  is, 
indeed,  the  reason  why  we  are  only  likely  to  misinter- 
pret, as  Marx  has  undoubtedly  done,  the  nature  and 
tendency  of  the  economic  development  we  are  under- 
going, by  regarding  it  apart  in  itself  as  the  key  to 
the  whole  situation,  instead  of  as  only  a  subordinate 
phase  of  an  immensely  wider  evolutionary  process. 
From  the  larger  outlook  the  view  is  immeasurably 
widened.  The  development  that  will  fill  the  history 
of  the  twentieth  century,  will  certainly  be  the  change 
in  the  relations  of  capital,  labour,  and  the  state ;  but 
once  we  have  grasped  the  fundamental  laws  behind  that 
development  as  a  whole,  it  becomes  clear  that  the 
change,  vast  and  significant  as  it  undoubtedly  promises 
to  be,  will,  nevertheless,  be  one  essentially  and  pro- 
foundly different  both  in  character  and  results  from 
that  which  Marx  anticipated. 

To  understand  the  nature  of  this  change,  it  is 
desirable  now  to  call  to  mind  once  more  the  leading 
features  of  that  remarkable  process  of  social  develop- 
ment which  has  been  in  progress  throughout  the 
history  of  our  civilisation.  "We  found  this  process  to 


220  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

consist  essentially  in  the  slow  disintegration  of  that 
military  type  of  society  which  reached  its  highest 
development  in  the  Roman  Empire.  The  change  has 
been  gradually  accomplished  against  the  prolonged 
resistance  encountered  under  innumerable  forms  of 
those  privileged  classes  which  obtained,  under  this 
constitution  of  society,  the  influence  they  have  in  con- 
siderable measure,  although  to  a  gradually  diminish- 
ing extent,  continued  to  enjoy  down  into  the  time 
in  which  we  are  living.  Let  us  see  then,  in  the  first 
place,  what  have  been  the  tendencies  of  this  process  so 
far,  for  this  must  evidently  be  a  most  important  con- 
sideration in  endeavouring  to  form  an  estimate  of  the 
direction  in  which  it  is  carrying  us. 

If  we  look  at  this  process  as  a  whole,  it  will  be  seen 
that,  so  far  as  it  has  proceeded,  it  presents  two  easily 
recognised  features.  There  have  been  two  distinct 
tendencies  displayed  therein,  each  constant,  growing, 
unmistakable.  In  the  first  place  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that,  allowing  for  all  disappointments  and  drawbacks, 
the  social  progress,  moral  and  material,  which  the  masses 
of  the  people  have  made  since  the  process  commenced 
has  been  great,  and  has  been,  although  interrupted  at 
times,  practically  continuous.  It  must  be  remembered 
that,  at  the  period  at  which  we  take  up  the  process,  the 
lower  masses  of  the  people  amongst  the  present  European 
nations  possessed  scarcely  any  social  or  political  rights. 
Great  numbers  of  them  lived  continually  on  the  brink  of 
starvation ;  military  force  was  almost  the  only  law 
society  recognised  ;  and  slavery,  which  had  hitherto  been 
an  almost  universal  human  institution,  had  behind  it  not 
only  all  the  authority  of  force,  but  the  unquestioned 
sanction  of  the  highest  civilisation  which  man  had 
so  far  reached.  The  instincts  which  led  men  to  prey 


vni  MODERN  SOCIALISM  221 

on  each  other  were  scarcely  more  restrained  than  amongst 
the  lower  animals,  and  it  must  not  be  assumed  that  this 
was  the  result  of  the  disorganised  state  of  society  ;  for, 
following  the  example  of  the  ancient  empires,  all  associa- 
tions of  men  with  any  definite  pretensions  to  a  national 
existence  aspired  as  a  legitimate  object  to  prey  on  other 
peoples.  The  feudal  lords,  in  like  manner,  preyed  on 
their  neighbours  whenever  their  resources  and  following 
gave  them  hope  of  success,  so  that  scarcely  any  district 
was  long  free  from  the  horrors  and  outrage  of  war  in 
one  shape  or  another. 

No  glamour  can  hide  the  wretchedness  of  the  masses 
of  the  people  throughout  the  early  stages  of  the  history 
of  the  present  European  peoples.  Their  position  was,  at 
best,  but  one  of  slavery  slightly  modified.  The  worse 
than  animal  conditions  to  which  they  were  subject, 
the  unwholesome  food  on  which  they  fared,  and  the 
state  of  general  destitution  in  which  they  lived,  must,  in 
all  probability,  be  held  to  be  associated  with  the  general 
prevalence  in  Europe  late  into  the  Middle  Ages  of  widely 
prevalent  diseases  that  have  since  become  extinct.  The  ter- 
rible "  plague"  epidemics  periodically  devastated  Europe 
on  a  scale  and  to  an  extent  which  the  modern  world  has 
no  experience  of,  and  which  we  can  only  very  imperfectly 
realise.  After  the  break-up  of  military  feudalism  the 
condition  of  things  was  little  better.  The  people  were 
crushed  under  the  weight  of  rents,  services,  taxations, 
and  exactions  of  all  kinds.  Trade,  commerce,  industry, 
and  agriculture  were  harassed,  restricted,  and  im- 
poverished by  the  multitude  of  burthens  imposed  on 
them — burthens  which  only  during  the  last  hundred  years 
have  been  eased  or  removed  in  most  Western  countries.1 

1  In  the  Jvwrnal  de  la  Soci&J  de  Statistique  de  Paris,  March   1889, 
Alfred    Neymarck   enumerates   some  of  the  burthens   imposed   on   the 


?22  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

Slow  though  the  improvement  in  material  conditions 
has  been,  it  has  been,  nevertheless,  unmistakable  as  the 
people  have  gradually  acquired  a  larger  and  larger  share 
of  political  power ;  but  it  has,  naturally,  been  greatest  as 
we  approach  our  own  times.  No  careful  student  of 
history  can  ignore  the  significance  of  the  improvement 
in  the  position  of  the  masses  of  the  people  which  has 
taken  place  in  England  and  France  during  the  nine- 
teenth century  ;  nor  of  the  position  the  working  classes 
have  already  come  to  occupy  in  the  United  States  and 
some  of  the  British  colonies.  In  England  the  progress, 
as  we  approach  our  own  day,  has  been  enormous.  At 
the  bottom  of  the  scale  we  find,  as  Mr.  Giffen  showed  a 
few  years  ago,1  an  almost  continuous  decrease  in  the  pro- 
portion of  paupers  since  1855.  The  wages  of  almost  all 
classes  have  greatly  risen,  and  their  purchasing  power 
is  greater.  The  savings  bank  deposits  and  depositors 
show  a  progressive  increase  which  is  most  striking.  The 
houses  in  which  the  masses  of  the  people  live  are  better, 
and  continually  increase  in  value  ;  the  conditions  of  life 
are  more  healthy  and  refined,  and  continually  tend 
towards  improvement.  The  hours  of  labour  are  much 
less,  and  tend  towards  further  reduction ;  the  conditions 

peasant  in  France  one  hundred  years  ago.  "  Without  taking  into  account 
services  to  be  paid  for  in  kind,  he  was  called  upon  to  pay  dimes,  tattles, 
capitations,  vingttemes,  and  centimes,  corv&s,  aides,  gabettes,  etc.  If  he  was 
desirous  of  selling  in  the  markets  open  to  him  the  produce  of  his  labour, 
he  was  forced  to  pay  the  dues  on  mesurage,  piquetage,  minage,  sterlaye, 
palette,  icuellee,  pied  fourchu,  angayage,  eprouvage,  and  Aalage ;  that  is  to 
say  he  was  mulcted  for  each  measure  of  grain  sold  ;  for  each  cow,  pig,  or 
sheep  ;  lor  each  load  of  wheat  brought  in  by  strangers  ;  for  each  basket 
containing  fowls,  eggs,  butter,  and  cheese,  and  for  each  horse  examined 
and  sold "  (see  translation  of  paper  in  Journal  of  the  Royal  Statistical 
Society,  June  1 889).  See  also  Mill's  Political  Economy,  Book  v.  chap,  xi.,  for 
an  account  of  the  restrictions  and  burthens  which  the  state  formerly  placed 
upon  commerce  and  manufactures. 

-   Vide    Journal    of   the   Royal    Statistical    Society,    December     1887 ; 
Presidential  Address,  Economic  Section,  British  Association,  Meeting  1887. 


viii  MODERN  SOCIALISM  223 

of  work  have  been  greatly  improved ;  and  education, 
amusement,  and  recreation  are  provided  for  the  people 
on  a  greatly  extended  scale.  Nay,  at  last,  we  have  the 
rising  school  of  orthodox  political  economists  in  Eng- 
land already  beginning  to  question  whether  poverty 
itself  may  not  be  abolished,  and  whether  it  is  necessarily 
any  more  a  permanent  human  institution  than  was 
slavery. 

It  has  been  the  same  in  France.  It  must  be  remem- 
bered that  we  have  to  compare  the  present  condition  of 
the  mass  of  the  population,  not  with  their  state  under 
some  ideal  organisation  of  society,  but  with  their  actual 
condition  in  the  past.  In  a  very  striking  comparison 
of  the  present  and  the  past  in  France  by  Alfred 
Neymarck,  which  appeared  in  the  Journal  de  la  SodetS 
de  Statistique  de  Paris  for  March  1889,  some  interest- 
ing facts  are  recorded.  "  During  the  last  centuries," 
says  the  author,  "  famine,  which  we  now  only  know  by 
name,  and  of  which  we  have  had  no  practical  experience, 
was,  in  some  sort,  a  permanent  institution  on  the  fertile 
soil  of  France.  In  the  twelfth  century  it  made  its 
appearance  over  fifty  times.  Under  Louis  XIV.  in  1663 
and  1690,  and  in  1790,  whole  populations  were  absolutely 
dying  of  hunger."1  A  century  ago  the  peasant  in 
France  suffered  continual  privation ;  such  a  condition 
had  become  chronic.  "  White  bread  was  a  thing  un- 

o 

krown ;  once  or  twice  a  year,  at  Easter  or  at  other 
high  festivals,  a  piece  of  bacon  was  regarded  as  a 
luxury.  Oil  of  rape-seed  and  beech-oil  were  used  to 
render  the  most  common  vegetables  palatable.  The 
ordinary  beverage  was  water ;  beer  was  dear,  cider 
not  less  so,  and  wine  was  a  luxury  exceedingly 
rare." 

1  Vide  Translation,  Journal  Royal  Statistical  Society,  June  1889. 


224  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

As  against  this  the  author  contrasts  the  present 
condition  of  the  lower  classes.  "  One  has  only  to  glance 
at  the  labouring  man  when  engaged  at  his  work,  to  see 
that  the  quality  of  his  clothing  has  improved,  and  that 
the  shoe  has  replaced  the  sabot.  Instead  of  the  tattered 
garments,  veritable  rags  in  fact,  formerly  worn  by 
women,  has  succeeded  printed  calicoes,  wool,  and  cloth ; 
and  in  the  poorest  houses  it  is  a  common  thing  to  find 
linen,  clean  and  white,  put  away  for  use  on  Sundays 
and  fete  days,  and  it  is  by  no  means  unusual  to  find  in 
a  large  number  of  cottages  both  books  and  flowers. 
Wages  have  increased  three,  four,  five,  and  even  ten- 
fold in  certain  industries.  Formerly  a  workman  barely 
gained,  and  that  with  the  hardest  labour,  from  one  to 
two  francs  a  day ;  he  now  receives  from  five,  six,  eight, 
and  sometimes  ten  francs." l  The  average  duration  of 
life  has,  the  author  says,  increased ;  the  rate  of  mortality 
is  lower ;  the  quality  of  food  has  improved ;  house  accom- 
modation is  better ;  clothing  more  healthy ;  and  temper- 
ance more  extensively  practised. 

In  whatever  direction  we  look  we  find  evidence  of 
this  same  tendency.  Foreign  economic  writers  are 
already  beginning  to  remark  that  one  of  the  most  strik- 
ing of  recent  economic  phenomena  in  England  is  the 
check  which  appears  to  have  been  given  to  the  growth 
of  large  fortunes,  and  the  wider  and  more  even  distribu- 
tion of  wealth  which  is  taking  place.  The  same  tendency 
is  visible  in  France ;  M.  Claudio  Jannet  has  recently 
stated  that  there  are  not  now  in  France  more  than  700 
to  800  persons  with  £10,000  a  year,  and  not  more  than 
18,000  to  20,000  with  £2000  and  upwards.  He  shows 
also  that  whereas  the  national  debt  in  that  country  has 
doubled  from  1869  to  1881,  the  holders  have  quadrupled. 

1  Vide  Translation,  Journal  Royal  Statistical  Society,  June  1889. 


viii  MODERN  SOCIALISM  22$ 

The  number  of  small  holders  of  bonds  tends  to  greatly 
increase,  and  he  mentions  that  one-half  of  the  bonds 
of  the  city  of  Paris  are  owned  by  holders  of  a  single 
bond.  Other  figures  quoted  are  also  striking.  Out  of 
8,302,272  inhabited  houses  in  France,  he  states  that 
5,460,355,  or  more  than  65  per  cent,  are  occupied  by 
their  owners.1  Some  years  ago  Mr.  Goschen  furnished 
us  with  an  equally  interesting  set  of  facts  exhibiting 
the  tendency  to  the  increase  of  moderate  incomes  in 
England.2 

The  conditions  of  life  of  the  masses  of  the  people 
show  everywhere  a  progressive  improvement — the  im- 
provement, so  far,  following  the  development  by  which 
the  people  have  attained  to  a  larger  and  larger  share 
of  political  power.  This  feature  is  sometimes  dwelt 
upon  by  those  who  wish  to  draw  conclusions  therefrom 
favourable  to  the  continuance  of  the  existing  order  of 
things.  But  we  must  not  on  that  account  ignore  the 
facts  altogether,  as  is  sometimes  done  by  writers  of 
extreme  views  on  the  other  side.  In  estimating  the 

1  See  Le  Capital,   la   Speculation   et   la  Finance  au  xiaf  Sidcle,  par 
Claudio  Jannet,  Paris,   1892.     The  author  says  (p.  30):  "  Le  recense- 
ment  des  habitations  auquel  1'administration  des  contributions  directes  a 
proce"d£  en  1888  pour  e"  valuer  la  proprietd  b&tie,  a  mis  ce  fait  en  pleine 
Evidence.      Sur   8,302,272    maisons    d'habitation    (deduction    faite    de 
612,251  non  occupies),  5,460,355  sont  habitees  par  leur  proprie"taire,  ce 
qui  fait  plus  de  65  p.  100,  les  deux  tiers,  pour  la  France  enti&re." 

His  statement  respecting  the  gradual  increase  in  the  number  of  holders 
of  the  public  funds  is  also  very  interesting.  He  says  (p.  32):  "Le- 
nombre  des  inscriptions  de  rentes  e'tait,  en  1886,  de  3,861,280  pour  743 
millions  de  rente  3  pour  100  et  4^ ;  au  31  de"cembre  1889,  il  etait  de 
4,708,348  pour  856  millions  de  rente.  Cela  ne  veut  pas  dire  qu'il  y  ait  un 
pareil  nombre  de  rentiers,  car  le  me'me  personne  possede  souvent  plusieurs 
inscriptions.  M.  Leroy-Beaulieu  e"  valuait  a  environ  un  million  le  nombre 
des  possesseurs  de  rente  en  1881.  II  est  eVidemment  plus  consid^rable- 
aujourd'hui  car,  au  fur  et  a  mesure  que  les  grands  emprunts  se  classentv 
la  rente  se  diss^mine  davantage.  Tandis  que,  de  1869  a  1891,  le 
chiffre  total  des  rentes  doublait,  le  nombre  des  inscriptions  quadruplait." 

2  Vide  Journal  of  the  Royal  Statistical  Society,  December  1887. 

Q 


226  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

situation,  our  first  duty  clearly  is  to  take  all  its  features 
fairly  into  account ;  and  when  this  is  done  it  must  be 
frankly  admitted  that  there  is  no  justification  whatever 
for  either  thinking  or  speaking  of  the  past  century  as 
a  period  of  progressive  degeneration  for  the  working 
classes.  All  the  facts  point  unmistakably  the  other  way. 

If  we  look  now  in  another  quarter,  the  second 
tendency  of  the  developmental  tendency  which  has  been, 
so  far,  in  progress,  is  even  more  clearly  discernible.  The 
movement  which  is  thus  slowly  raising  the  condition  of 
the  masses,  and  bringing  about  more  equal  conditions  of 
life  amongst  the  people,  has  not  hitherto  operated  to 
suspend  the  rivalry  and  competition  of  life.  On  the 
contrary,  the  more  carefully  we  consider  the  whole 
process,  the  more  clearly  does  it  appear  that  its 
tendency  has  been  in  the  opposite  direction.  It  is  in 
countries  like  England  and  the  United  States,  where  the 
process  has  advanced  furthest,  that  the  rivalry  and 
competition  have  such  well-marked  features.  The 
conditions  have  tended  to  become  freer,  fairer,  more 
humanised.  But  so  also  have  the  stress  and  energy 
of  life,  developed  thereby,  tended  to  reach  a  point  dis- 
tinctly higher  than  ever  before  attained  in  human 
existence. 

The  tendency  amongst  all  the  advanced  peoples 
appears  to  be  unmistakable.  It  is  everywhere  to  allow 
the  fullest  possible  scope  for  the  development  of  the 
personality  of  the  individual,  and  the  widest  possible 
range  of  opportunity  to  follow  wherever  his  powers  or 
abilities  lead  him.  We  have,  in  a  preceding  chapter, 
dwelt  upon  the  extent  to  which  this  tendency  is  displayed 
in  almost  every  department  of  life  amongst  the  leading 
Western  peoples,  and  how  unmistakably  it  constitutes 
the  characteristic  feature  of  the  life  of  those  sections  of 


vin  MODERN  SOCIALISM  227 

the  race  which  are  obtaining  the  greatest  ascendency  in 
the  world. 

Looking  back  over  the  process  of  evolution  which  * 
has  been  unfolding  in  our  civilisation,  there  can  be  no 
mistaking  its  nature.  The  slow  break-up  of  the  military 
type  of  society  out  of  which  it  arose ;  the  abolition  of 
slavery ;  the  steady  restriction  of  the  power  retained 
over  the  people  by  those  privileged  classes  who  obtained 
their  rights  and  influence  under  an  earlier  form  of  society ; 
the  disintegration  of  military  feudalism ;  the  slow  and 
painfully-achieved  steps  in  the  emancipation  (still  incom- 
plete) of  agriculture,  trade,  and  commerce,  from  the 
rights  which  modified  feudalism  continued  to  retain  over 
them ;  the  hard-won  stages  in  the  political  emancipation 
of  the  masses  (now  approaching  completion  amongst  the 
Western  peoples),  accompanied  by  a  gradual  improve- 
ment in  the  conditions  of  life  amongst  the  lower  classes 
—these  have  all  been  the  well-marked  stages  in  a  single 
developmental  process  still  pursuing  its  onward  course 
amongst  us.  The  inherent  tendency  of  the  process 
from  the  beginning  has  been  to  ultimately  bring  all  the 
excluded  people  into  the  rivalry  of  life.  But  its  signifi- 
cance has  consisted  in  its  tendency  to  raise  this  rivalry 
to  the  highest  level  of  efficiency  it  has  ever  reached. 

It  would  seem  that  there  can  be  little  doubt  as  to 
the  nature  and  the  tendency  of  the  development  so  far. 
What  then,  it  may  be  asked,  is  it  destined  to  accom- 
plish in  the  future  ?  The  answer  must  apparently 
be,  that  it  must  complete  the  process  of  evolution 
in  progress,  by  eventually  bringing  all  the  people 
into  the  rivalry  of  life,  not  only  on  a  footing  of 
political  equality,  but  on  conditions  of  equal  social 
opportunities.  This  is  the  end  which  the  developmental 
forces  at  work  in  our  civilisation  are  apparently  destined 


228  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

to  achieve  in  the  social  life  of  those  people  amongst 
whom  it  is  allowed  to  follow  its  natural  and  normal 
course  uninterrupted  by  disturbing  causes, — an  end, 
when  its  relationships  are  perceived,  as  moving  to  the 
imagination,  as  vast  and  transforming  in  character,  as 
that  which  Marx  anticipated.  But  it  is  an  end 
essentially  and  profoundly  different  in  character.  Marx 
contemplated  our  Western  civilisation  culminating 
in  a  condition  of  society  which  it  was  difficult,  if  not 
impossible,  for  any  one  who  had  realised  the  essential 
unity  and  continuity  under  all  outward  forms  of  the 
developmental  forces  at  work  in  human  society,  to 
imagine ;  a  state  in  which  the  laws  that  had  operated 
continuously  from  the  beginning  of  life  were  to  be 
suddenly  interrupted  and  finally  suspended.  But  the 
state  towards  which  we  are  travelling  is  apparently  not 
one  in  which  these  laws  will  be  suspended ;  it  will  be 
only  the  highest  phase  reached  in  human  society  of  the 
same  cosmic  process  which  has  been  in  operation  from 
the  beginning.  Great  and  transforming  as  the  coming 
changes  will  in  all  probability  be,  no  bouleversement  of 
society  is  to  be  expected.  We  are  moving,  and  shall 
merely  continue  to  move,  by  orderly  stages  to  the  goal 
towards  which  the  face  of  society  has  in  reality  been 
set  from  the  beginning  of  our  civilisation. 

If  we  endeavour  to  present  clearly  to  our  minds  the 
nature  of  this  process  as  a  whole,  we  shall  find  that  we 
are  now  in  a  position  to  understand  the  meaning  of  that 
social  development  towards  which  our  times  are  ripen- 
ing, and  with  which  the  history  of  the  twentieth 
century  will  undoubtedly  be  filled.  Nay,  more,  we  are 
enabled  to  distinguish,  with  some  degree  of  clearness,  the 
stages  through  which  it  must  carry  us  in  the  immediate 
future.  The  period  through  which  we  are  passing  is 


vin  MODERN  SOCIALISM  229 

perceived  to  be  one  of  transition.  A  definite,  long- 
drawn-out,  and  altogether  remarkable  era  in  the  history 
of  our  civilisation  is  coming  to  a  close  amongst  the  more 
advanced  peoples.  We  are  entering  on  a  new  era. 
The  political  enfranchisement  of  the  masses  is  well-nigh 
accomplished ;  the  process  which  will  occupy  the  next 
period  will  be  that  of  their  social  enfranchisement. 
The  people  have  been,  at  last,  admitted  to  equal  political 
rights ;  in  the  next  stage  they  must  apparently  be 
admitted  to  equal  social  opportunities.  When  the  nature 
of  the  transition  is  perceived,  it  becomes  clear  also  that 
the  questions  around  which  the  conflict  of  social  forces 
must  centre  in  the  immediate  future  are  just  those 
questions  the  socialist  movement  has  brought  into 
such  prominence,  namely,  those  affecting  the  exist- 
ing rights  of  capital  and  the  present  distribution  of 
wealth. 

In  one  of  those  frequent  flashes  wherewith  Marx,  for 
a  moment,  lights  up  the  foundations  of  present-day 
society,  he  asserts  that  "  the  economic  structure  of 
(present)  capitalist  society  has  grown  out  of  the 
economic  structure  of  feudal  society."1  This  is  a  fact 
which  has  not  yet  been  fully  realised  by  those  pro- 
gressive parties  amongst  us,  who,  having  for  the  most 
part  accepted  the  ideas  of  the  older  school  of  economists 
as  to  the  relationships  of  labour,  capital,  and  the  state, 
have  obtained  therefrom  a  false  sense  of  the  continued 
normalcy  and  rigidity  of  these  relationships.  We  have, 
however,  only  to  watch  closely  the  wave  of  change 
which  is  passing  over  economic  science  in  England  to 
learn  in  what  a  large  measure  the  truth  underly- 
ing Marx's  statement  is  already  being  perceived  and 

1  Capital,  vol.  ii.  chap.  xxvi.     English  translation,  Swan  Sonnen- 
Bchein  and  Co. 


230  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

applied   by  the   younger  and   rising  school  of  econo- 
mists. 

There  is  a  growing  and  highly  significant  tendency 
amongst  this  school  to  question  whether  the  present 
"cruelty  and  waste  of  irresponsible  competition,  and 
the  licentious  use  of  wealth,"  do  really  form  any 
essential  feature  of  the  institution  of  private  capital, 
or  any  necessary  accompaniment  of  "the  services 
which  competition  renders  to  society,  by  tending  to 
put  the  ablest  men  into  the  most  important  posts, 
the  next  ablest  into  the  next  most  important,  and 
so  on,  and  by  giving  to  those  in  each  grade  freedom 
for  the  full  exercise  of  their  faculties."1  It  is  being 
questioned  with  growing  confidence  by  this  school 
whether,  allowing  "  that  industrial  progress  depends  on 
our  getting  the  right  men  into  the  right  places  and 
giving  them  a  free  hand  and  sufficient  incitement  to 
exert  themselves  to  the  utmost,"  it  also  follows  "  that 
nothing  less  than  the  enormous  fortunes  which  success- 
ful men  now  make  and  retain  would  suffice  for  that 
purpose."  Professor  Marshall  goes  so  far  as  to  hold 
that  this  last  position  is  untenable,  and  that  "  the 
present  extreme  inequalities  of  wealth  tend  in  many 
ways  to  prevent  human  faculties  from  being  turned  to 
their  best  account."  And  he  continues:  "All  history 
shows  that  a  man  will  exert  himself  nearly  as  much  to 
secure  a  small  rise  in  income  as  a  large  one,  provided  he 
knows  beforehand  what  he  stands  to  gain,  and  is  in  no 
fear  of  having  the  expected  fruits  of  his  exertions  taken 
away  from  him  by  arbitrary  spoliation.  If  there  were 
any  fear  of  that  he  would  not  do  his  best,  but  if  the 

1  Vide  "  Some  Aspects  of  Competition,"  by  Professor  Alfred  Marshall, 
Journal  of  the  Royal  Statistical  Society,  December  1890.  Reprint  of 
Address  as  President  of  Economic  Section,  British  Association,  1890. 


viii  MODERN  SOCIALISM  231 

conditions  of  the  country  were  such  that  a  moderate 
income  gave  as  good  a  social  position  as  a  large  one 
does  now ;  if  to  have  earned  a  moderate  income  were  a 
strong  presumptive  proof  that  a  man  had  surpassed  able 
rivals  in  the  attempt  to  do  a  difficult  thing  well,  then 
the  hope  of  earning  such  an  income  would  offer  to  all 
but  the  most  sordid  natures  inducements  almost  as 
strong  as  they  are  now,  when  there  is  an  equal  hope  of 
earning  a  large  one." l 

These  are  all  indications  of  the  direction  in  which  we 
are  travelling — and  indications  of  the  utmost  significance 
at  the  present  time  as  coming  from  the  younger  orthodox 
school  of  economists  in  England.  The  position  occupied 
by  this  party  is  already  clearly  defined.  "They  are 
most  anxious  to  preserve  the  freedom  of  the  individual 
to  try  new  paths  on  his  own  responsibility.  They 
regard  this  as  the  vital  service  which  free  competition 
renders  to  progress ;  and  desire,  on  scientific  grounds,  to 
disentangle  the  case  for  it,  from  the  case  for  such 
institutions  as  tend  to  maintain  extreme  inequalities  of 
wealth ;  to  which  some  of  them  are  strongly  opposed."2 

The  nature  of  the  position  which  has  been  reached 
amongst  the  advanced  sections  of  the  Western  peoples 
thus  emerges  more  clearly  into  view.  Occupied  as 
these  peoples  have  been  for  a  prolonged  period  in 
winning  and  consolidating  their  political  freedom,  they 
as  a  consequence  have  tended — no  less  in  the  United 
States  than  in  Germany,  France,  and  England — to 
magnify  as  the  final  end  the  occupation  of  a  merely 
preliminary  position.  "We  have  come  to  believe  that 
the  feudal  system  is  defunct.  But  the  real  fact,  as  Marx 

1  Vide  "  Some  Aspects  of  Competition,"  by  Professor  Alfred  Marshall, 
Journal  of  the  Royal  Statistical  Society,   December   1890.      Reprint  of 
Address  as  President  of  Economic  Section,  British  Association,  1890. 

2  Ibid. 


232  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

realised  more  clearly  than  the  older  economists,  is,  that 
the  dead  hand  of  feudalism  still  presses  with  crushing 
weight  upon  the  people  through  almost  all  the  forms 
and  institutions  of  present-day  society.  A  large  part  of 
the  existing  unregulated  and  uncontrolled  rights  of 
wealth  and  capital  are  in  reality  merely  the  surviving 
rights  of  feudalism  adapted  to  new  conditions.  Educa- 
tion must  in  time  bring  us  to  see  that  their  continued 
existence  is  incompatible  with  the  attainment  of  the 
ideal  which  society  will  have  set  more  and  more  clearly 
before  it  in  the  stage  of  development  upon  which  we 
are  entering. 

How  far  we  are  at  present  from  the  realisation  of 
this  ideal  of  equality  of  opportunity,  we  shall  probably 
perceive  more  clearly  as  the  development  continues. 
Future  generations  may  regard  with  some  degree  of 
surprise,  and  may  even  smile  at  our  conceptions  of 
present-day  society  as  a  condition  in  which  we  secure 
the  full  benefits  of  free  competition  ;  in  which  we  get  the 
right  men  into  the  right  places  and  give  them  sufficient 
inducements  to  exert  themselves  ;  and  in  which  we  have 
obtained  for  all  members  of  the  community  the  neces- 
sary opportunity  for  the  full  exercise  of  their  faculties. 
It  requires  but  little  reflection  to  see  how  wide  of  the 
mark  such  a  conception  really  is.  A  large  proportion 
of  the  population  in  the  prevailing  state  of  society  take 
part  in  the  rivalry  of  life  only  under  conditions  which 
absolutely  preclude  them,  whatever  their  natural  merit 
or  ability,  from  any  real  chance  therein.  They  come 
into  the  world  to  find  the  best  positions  not  only 
already  filled  but  practically  occupied  in  perpetuity. 
For,  under  the  great  body  of  rights  which  wealth  has 
inherited  from  feudalism,  we  to  all  intents  and  purposes 
allow  the  wealthy  classes  to  retain  the  control  of  these 


vin  MODERN  SOCIALISM  233 

positions  for  generation  after  generation,  to  the  perma- 
nent exclusion  of  the  rest  of  the  people.  Even  from 
that  large  and  growing  class  of  positions  for  which  high 
acquirements  or  superior  education  is  the  only  quali- 
fication, and  of  which  we,  consequently  (with  strange  in- 
accuracy), speak  as  if  they  were  open  to  all  comers,  it  may 
be  perceived  that  the  larger  proportion  of  the  people 
are  excluded — almost  as  rigorously  and  as  absolutely  as 
in  any  past  condition  of  society — by  the  simple  fact  that 
the  ability  to  acquire  such  education  or  qualification  is 
at  present  the  exclusive  privilege  of  wealth. 

Before  the  rivalry  of  life  can  be  raised  to  that  state 
of  efficiency  as  an  instrument  of  progress  towards  which 
it  appears  to  be  the  inherent  tendency  of  our  civilisa- 
tion to  continue  to  carry  it,  society  will  still  have 
to  undergo  a  transformation  almost  as  marked  as  any 
through  which  it  has  passed  in  previous  stages.  We 
have  evidence  of  the  beginning  of  this  transformation 
in  that  trend  of  present-day  legislation  which  appears 
so  puzzling  to  many  of  the  old  progressive  school,  who 
have  not  realised  the  nature  of  the  process  of  develop- 
ment in  progress.  It  may  be  noticed  that  the  char- 
acteristic feature  of  this  legislation  is  the  increasing 
tendency  to  raise  the  position  of  the  lower  classes  at 
the  expense  of  the  wealthier  classes.  All  future  pro- 
gressive legislation  must  apparently  have  this  tendency. 
It  is  almost  a  conditio  sine  qud  non  of  any  measure 
that  carries  us  a  step  forward  in  our  social  develop- 
ment. 

This  is  the  real  meaning  of  a  large  class  of 
proposed  measures,  amongst  others  that  which  aims 
at  securing  an  eight  hours  day  for  adult  labour 
enforced  by  law — measures,  in  the  present  transition 
period,  loosely  but  inaccurately  described  as  socialist, 


*34  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

and  still  looked  at  askance  by  that  radical  party  in 
England  who  have  not  yet  clearly  perceived  that  the 
principles  of  their  faith  carry  them  any  further  than 
the  mere  political  enfranchisement  of  the  people.  To 
shorten  the  hours  of  labour  in  such  a  manner  is,  at  the 
present  time,  primarily  and  above  everything  else  to 
raise  the  conditions  of  life  of  the  workers  at  the  expense 
of  wealth;  and,  consequently,  ultimately  to  place  the 
workers  more  on  a  footing  of  equality  in  the  rivalry  of  life 
with  those  above  them.  It  is  this  principle  also  that 
is  behind  various  recent  measures  in  England — limited  in 
character  but  tending  to  gradually  and  greatly  extend 
in  scope — which  aim  at  bettering  at  the  public  expense 
the  condition  of  the  lives  of  the  lower  classes  of  workers. 
It  underlies  the  demand  for  graduated  taxation,  which 
may  be  expected  to  increase  in  strength  and  importunity; 
and  demands  which  may  be  expected  to  take  practical 
shape  in  the  near  future,  for  the  revision  of  the  heredi- 
tary rights  of  wealth  and  the  conditions  under  which  great 
fortunes  are  transmitted  from  generation  to  generation. 
The  same  principle  will  apparently  underlie  our  educa- 
tion legislation  in  future.  We  must  expect  to  have  to 
meet,  before  long,  demands  for  a  very  considerable  exten- 
sion of  the  education  provided  by  the  state  and  for  state 
control  in  the  interests  of  the  people  of  higher  as  well 
as  of  elementary  education.  It  may  be  remarked  that 
over  no  other  question  is  the  struggle  between  the  old 
spirit  and  the  new  likely  to  be  more  severe  and  pro- 
longed than  over  this  question  of  education.  It  is  in 
reality  one  of  the  last  principal  strongholds  of  the 
retreating  party.  It  is  not  yet  clearly  perceived  by  the 
people  that  there  is  not  any  more  natural  and  lasting 
distinction  between  the  educated  and  the  uneducated 
classes  of  which  we  hear  so  much  nowadays,  than  there 


vin  MODERN  SOCIALISM  235 

has  been  between  the  other  classes  in  the  past.  Citizen 
and  slave,  patrician  and  plebeian,  feudal  lord  and  serf, 
privileged  classes  and  common  people,  leisured  classes 
and  working  masses,  have  been  steps  in  a  process  of 
development.  In  the  "educated  classes"  and  the 
"uneducated  classes"  we  have  only  the  same  distinc- 
tion under  a  subtler  and  even  less  defensible  form ; 
for  the  right  to  education  in  its  highest  forms  now 
remains  largely  independent  of  any  other  qualification 
than  the  possession  of  mere  riches  to  secure  it;  it 
constitutes,  IE  fact,  one  of  the  most  exclusive,  and  at 
the  same  time  one  of  the  most  influential,  of  the  privi- 
leges of  wealth. 

There  is  also  another  aspect  of  the  subject  which  we 
must  be  prepared  to  find  coming  into  increasing  promi- 
nence. It  is  a  fact,  the  full  significance  of  which  has 
not  yet  been  perceived  by  the  masses,  that  the  condition 
of  society  which  renders  the  right  of  entry  to  the 
institutions  for  higher  education  the  almost  exclusive 
privilege  of  wealth,  tends,  from  the  close  connection  of 
these  institutions  with  the  intellectual  life  of  society,  to 
render  them  (however  much  they  may,  and  do,  from  the 
highest  motives  endeavour  to  resist  such  tendency) 
influences  retarding  to  a  considerable  degree  the 
progress  of  the  development  which  society  is  under- 
going. We  have,  consequently,  at  the  present  day,  in 
most  of  our  advanced  societies  the  remarkable  pheno- 
menon of  the  intellectual  and  educated  classes,  at 
i:rst  almost  invariably  condemning  and  resisting  the 
successive  steps  in  our  social  development,  uttering  the 
most  gloomy  warnings  and  forebodings  as  these  steps 
have  been  taken — and  then  tardily  justifying  them  when 
they  have  become  matters  of  history ;  that  is  to  say, 
when  approval  or  disapproval  has  long  ceased  to  be 


236  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

of  practical  importance.  It  has  to  be  confessed  that 
in  England  during  the  nineteenth  century  the  educated 
classes,  in  almost  all  the  great  political  changes 
that  have  been  effected,  have  taken  the  side  of  the 
party  afterwards  admitted  to  have  been  in  the  wrong, 

—they  have  almost  invariably  opposed  at  the  time  the 
measures  they  have  subsequently  come  to  defend 
and  justify.  This  is  to  be  noticed  alike  of  measures 
which  have  extended  education,  which  have  emancipated 
trade,  which  have  extended  the  franchise.  The  educated 
classes  have  even,  it  must  be  confessed,  opposed  measures 
which  have  tended  to  secure  religious  freedom  and  to 
abolish  slavery.  The  motive  force  behind  the  long  list  of 
progressive  measures  carried  during  this  period  has  in 
scarcely  any  appreciable  measure  come  from  the  edu- 
cated classes ;  it  has  come  almost  exclusively  from  the 
middle  and  lower  classes,  who  have  in  turn  acted,  not 
under  the  stimulus  of  intellectual  motives,  but  under 
the  influence  of  their  altruistic  feelings. 

We  have  evidence  of  the  same  development  towards 
securing  equality  of  opportunity  in  that  tendency 
towards  the  extension  of  the  interference  of  the  state, 
which  appears  so  revolutionary  to  politicians  of  the  old 
laissez-faire  school.  The  progressive  interference  of 
the  state  (mostly  in  the  interests  of  the  weaker  classes, 
and  at  the  expense  of  wealth  and  privilege)  in  depart- 
ments now  looked  upon  as  quite  outside  the  sphere  of 
such  action,  is  apparently  inevitable.  We  do  not  yet  fully 
realise  that  with  the  completion  of  the  political  enfran- 
chisement of  the  people,  the  state  itself  will  have  under- 
gone a  profound  transformation.  Its  new  relationship  to 
the  people  must  be  quite  different  from  any  that  has 
ever  before  prevailed  in  history.  The  spirit  which 
produced  the  old  laissez-faire  doctrine  has,  in  all  proba- 


vin  MODERN  SOCIALISM  237 

bill ty,  still  a  great  part  to  play  in  our  social  development; 
but  the  doctrine  itself  is,  in  reality,  what  the  party 
previously  identified  with  it  in  England  has  for  some 
time  instinctively  recognised  it  to  be — the  doctrine  of  a 
period  beyond  which  we  have  progressed.  It  has  served 
its  end  in  the  stage  of  evolution  through  which  we  have 
passed ;  for  the  doctrine  of  the  non-interference  of  the 
state  was  the  natural  political  creed  of  a  people  who  had 
won  their  political  freedom  through  a  process  of  slow, 
orderly,  and  hard-fought  development,  and  to  whom  the 
state  throughout  this  period  represented  the  power- 
holding  classes  whose  interests  were  not  coincident 
with  those  of  the  masses  of  the  people. 

But  the  doctrine  has  no  such  part  to  play  in  the 
future.  In  the  era  upon  which  we  are  entering,  the  long 
uphill  effort  to  secure  equality  of  opportunity,  as  well  as 
equality  of  political  rights,  will  of  necessity  involve,  not 
the  restriction  of  the  interference  of  the  state,  but  the 
progressive  extension  of  its  sphere  of  action  to  almost 
every  department  of  our  social  life.  The  movement  in 
the  direction  of  the  regulation,  control,  and  restriction 
of  the  rights  of  wealth  and  capital  must  be  expected  to 
continue,  even  to  the  extent  of  the  state  itself  assuming 
these  rights  in  cases  where  it  is  clearly  proved  that 
their  retention  in  private  hands  must  unduly  interfere 
with  the  rights  and  opportunities  of  the  body  of  the 
people.  But  the  continuity  of  principle  may  be  expected 
to  remain  evident  under  the  new  appearances.  Even  in 
such  cases  the  state  will,  in  reality,  assume  such  functions 
in  order  to  preserve  or  secure  free  competition  Bather 
than  to  suspend  it.  Hence  the  general  tendency  must 
be  expected  to  be  towards  state  interference  and  state 
control  on  a  greatly  extended  scale  rather  than  towards 
state  management. 


238  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

It  may,  perhaps,  be  inferred  from  this  that  the 
development  of  society  in  the  direction  indicated  will 
be  itself  a  movement  towards  socialism.  This  is  not  so. 
The  gulf  between  the  state  of  society  towards  which  it  is 
the  tendency  of  the  process  of  evolution  now  in  progress 
to  carry  us,  and  socialism,  is  wide  and  deep.  The  avowed 
aim  of  socialism  is  to  suspend  that  personal  rivalry  and 
competition  of  life  which  not  only  is  now,  but  has  been 
from  the  beginning  of  life,  the  fundamental  impetus 
behind  all  progress.  The  inherent  tendency  of  the 
process  of  social  development  now  taking  place  amongst 
us  is  (as  it  has  been  from  the  beginning  of  our  civilisa- 
tion) to  raise  this  rivalry  to  the  very  highest  degree 
of  efficiency  as  a  condition  of  progress,  by  bringing 
all  the  people  into  it  on  a  footing  of  equality,  and  by 
allowing  the  freest  possible  play  of  forces  within  the 
community,  and  the  widest  possible  opportunities  for 
the  development  of  every  individual's  faculties  and 
personality.  This  is  the  meaning  of  that  evolutional 
process  which  has  been  slowly  proceeding  through  the 
history  of  the  "Western  peoples. 

But  in  any  consideration  of  the  future  tendency  of 
our"  social  progress,  the  overshadowing  importance  of 
that  ethical  development  which  has  supplied  the  motive 
power  behind  the  procession  of  events  we  call  pro- 
gress, must  always  be  kept  in  mind.  In  the  process 
of  evolution  through  which  we  have  passed,  the  main 
function  of  that  ethical  movement  on  which  our  civilisa- 
tion is  founded  has  been  in  the  first  place  to  provide 
the  sanctions  necessary  to  secure  the  continued  sub- 
ordination of  the  interests  of  the  self-assertive  individual 
to  the  larger  interests  of  society.  In  the  second  place 
it  has  been  to  generate  that  great  fund  of  altruistic 
feeling  which,  gradually  saturating  our  enUire  social 


vin  MODERN  SOCIALISM  239 

life,  has  slowly  undermined  the  position  of  the  power- 
holding  classes,  and  so  rendered  possible  the  move- 
ment which  is  tending  to  ultimately  bring  all  the  people 
into  the  rivalry  of  life  on  conditions  of  equality. 

The  future  progress  of  our  social  development  con- 
tinues to  be  indissolubly  bound  up  with  this  movement. 
When  the  fundamental  conditions  of  the  problem  which 
underlies  human  evolution  are  once  clearly  understood, 
it  must  be  perceived  that  it  is  in  the  nature  of  things 
impossible  for  rationalism  by  itself  to  provide  such 
sanctions  or  to  generate,  or  even  to  keep  up,  this  fund 
of  altruistic  feeling.  The  process  which  is  proceeding 
in  human  society  is  always  progressively  developing 
two  inherently  antagonistic  tendencies ;  namely,  the 
tendency  requiring  the  increasing  subordination  of  the 
individual  to  society,  and  the  rationalistic  tendency 
leading  the  individual  at  the  same  time  to  question, 
with  increasing  insistence,  the  authority  of  the  claims 
requiring  him  to  submit  to  a  process  of  social  order 
in  which  he  has  absolutely  no  interest,  and  which 
is  operating  largely  in  the  interests  of  unborn  genera- 
tions. In  a  healthy  and  progressive  society,  the  funda- 
mental principle  of  its  existence  is,  that  the  second 
tendency  must  be  continually  subordinated  to  the 
first. 

But,  as  has  been  throughout  insisted,  the  intellect 
has  no  power  to  effect  this  subordination.  With  the  decay 
of  the  ethical  influences  in  question,  we  may  imagine 
the  cynical  indifference,  nay,  the  cultivated  intellectual 
pride,  with  which  a  vigorous  character  would  regard  its 
emancipation  from  what  it  must,  in  such  circumstances, 
regard  as  a  mere  vulgar  thraldom.  If  our  conscious 
relationship  to  the  universe  is  measured  by  the  brief 
span  of  individual  existence,  then  the  intellect  can  know 


240  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

of  only  one  duty  in  the  individual,  namely,  his  duty  to 
himself  to  make  the  most  of  the  few  precious  years  of 
consciousness  he  can  ever  know.  Every  other  considera- 
tion must  appear  dwarfed  and  ridiculous  in  comparison. 
Every  pain  avoided,  every  pleasure  gained  in  these  few 
years,  is  a  consideration,  beside  which  the  intellect  must 
count  any  aspiration  to  further  a  process  of  cosmic 
evolution  in  which  the  individual  has  no  interest  as 
mere  dust  in  the  balance.  We  must  expect  wealth  and 
power,  in  such  circumstances,  to  be  grasped  at  with  a 
fierce  earnestness,  not  for  what  are  called  sordid  motives, 
but  for  intellectual  motives  over  and  above  all  others ; 
that  is  to  say,  for  the  command  of  the  pleasures  and 
gratifications  which  they  alone  can  secure.  And  it 
must  be  remembered  that  the  universal  experience  of 
mankind  has  been,  and  is  still,  that  wealth  and  power 
divorced  from  the  control  of  ethical  influences  of  the 
kind  in  question  have  not  sought  to  find  satisfaction  in 
what  are  called  the  higher  altruistic  pleasures,  but  that 
they  have  rather,  as  evolutionary  science  would  have 
taught  us,  sought^  the  satisfaction  of  those  instincts 
which  have  their  roots  deepest  in  our  natures.  Voluptu- 
ousness and  epicureanism  in  all  their  most  refined  forms 
have  everywhere  been,  and  everywhere  continue  to  be, 
the  accompaniments  of  irresponsible  wealth  and  power, 
the  corresponding  mental  habit  being  one  of  cultured 
contempt  for  the  excluded  and  envious  masses. 

Nor,  as  already  pointed  out,  must  any  weight  be 
attached  to  the  argument  that  would  ask  us  to  take 
note  of  the  many  exceptions  to  such  a  tendency  to  be 
found  in  present  society,  in  individuals  of  the  highest 
motives  and  purest  lives,  who  are  not  in  any  way  under 
the  influence  of  the  religious  movement  upon  which  our 
civilisation  is  founded.  Once  we  have  grasped  the  con- 


viii  MODERN  SOCIALISM  241 

ception  of  our  civilisation  as  a  developing  organic 
growth,  with  a  life -history  which  must  be  studied  as 
a  whole,  we  perceive  how  irrational  it  is  to  regard  any 
of  the  units  as  independent  of  the  influence  of  a  process 
which  has  operated  upon  society  for  so  many  centuries. 
As  well  might  we  argue  that  because  the  fruit  survives 
for  a  time  when  removed  from  the  tree,  and  even 
mellows  and  ripens,  that  it  was,  therefore,  independent 
of  the  tree. 

In  this  connection  it  should  be  remarked  that  the 
relationship  between  true  socialism  and  rationalism, 
casually  noticed  by  many  observers,  is  not  accidental 
as  it  is  often  stated  to  be.  It  has  its  foundation 
deep-seated  in  the  very  nature  of  things.  The 
conflict  between  the  forces  shaping  the  course  of  the 
development  we  are  at  present  undergoing,  and  the 
materialistic  socialism  of  Marx,  is  but  the  present-day 
expression  of  that  conflict  in  which  we  have  seen  man 
engaged  against  his  own  reason  throughout  the  whole 
course  of  his  social  development.  Socialism  in  reality 
aims  at  exploiting  in  the  interest  of  the  existing 
generation  of  individual^  that  humanitarian  movement 
which  is  providing  a  developmental  force  operating 
largely  in  the  interests  of  future  generations.  It  would, 
in  fact,  exploit  this  movement  wnile  it  cut  off  the 
springs  of  it.  True  socialism  of  the  German  type  must 
be  recognised  to  be  ultimately  as  individualistic  and  as 
anti-  social  as  individualism  in  its  advanced  forms. 
Scientifically,  they  are  both  to  be  considered  as  the 
extreme  logical  expression  of  rationalistic  protest  by  the 
individual  against  the  subordination  of  his  interests  to 
the  process  of  progressive  development  society  is  under- 
going from  generation  to  generation.  But  though  we 
have  thus  to  identify  socialism  with  political  materialism, 

R 


242  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP.  VIH 

no  greater  mistake  can  be  made  than  to  suppose  that  the 
ultimate  triumph  of  materialism  in  our  Western  civil- 
isation would  imply  the  realisation  ef  the  ideals  of 
socialism.  The  state  to  which  we  should  probably  attain 
long  before  reaching  this  stage  would  be  one  in  which  the 
power -holding  classes,  recognising  the  position,  would 
with  cynical  frankness  proceed  to  utilise  the  inherent 
strength  of  their  own  position.  Instead  of  slowly 
yielding  their  position  as  they  are  now  doing,  under 
the  softening  influence  upon  general  character  of  an 
ethical  movement — which  by  undermining  their  faith  in 
their  own  cause  has  deprived  them  of  the  power  of 
making  effective  resistance — they  might  be  expected  to 
become  once  more  aggressive  in  the  open  profession  of 
class  selfishness  and  contempt  for  the  people.  History 
presents  a  melancholy  record  of  the  helplessness  of  the 
latter  when  society  has  reached  this  stage.  The  de- 
liberate effectiveness  with  which  the  power  -  holding 
classes  in  ancient  Rome  dealt  with  the  rights  of  the 
people  in  such  circumstances  in  the  long  downward 
stage  under  the  Empire  is  instructive,  and  bears  its 
moral  on  the  surface.  In  such  a  state  of  society  the 
classes  who  have  obtained  wealth  and  power,  and  all 
other  classes  in  turn,  instead  of  acting,  as  they  now  do, 
under  the  influence  of  an  evolutionary  force  operating 
largely  in  the  future  interests  of  society,  come  to  hold 
it  as  a  duty  to  themselves  to  serve  their  own  present 
interests  by  such  direct  means  as  may  be  available.  In 
vague  popular  phraseology,  society  in  this  stage  is  said 
to  be  irremediably  corrupt :  strictly  speaking  the  social 
organism  has  exhausted  its  physiological  capital,  and 
has,  therefore,  entered  on  the  downward  stage  towards 
disintegration. 


CHAPTER  IX 

HUMAN    EVOLUTION   IS   NOT   PRIMARILY   INTELLECTUAL 

THE  biologist  who  has  attempted  to  carry  the  methods 
of  his  science  thus  far  into  the  consideration  of  the 
phenomena  presented  in  human  society,  now  finds  him- 
self approaching  a  conclusion  of  a  remarkable  kind.  If 
the  inferences  it  has  been  the  object  of  the  preceding 
chapters  to  establish  are  justified,  it  must  be  evident 
that  they  have  a  very  wide  significance  of  a  kind  not 
yet  considered. 

It  is  not  improbable  that  the  reader,  as  he  has 
advanced  through  the  last  three  chapters,  may  have  felt 
that  one  idea  has  assumed  increasing  prominence  in  his 
mind.  Admitting,  he  may  say,  that  our  civilisation  is 
to  be  viewed  as  a  single  organic  growth,  the  significance 
whereof  consists  in  the  fact  that  the  developmental 
process  proceeding  therein  tends  to  raise  the  rivalry 
of  life  to  the  highest  degree  of  efficiency  by  bringing 
all  the  people  into  it  on  a  footing  of  equality ;  that  the 
motive  force  which  has  been  behind  this  development 
has  its  seat  in  that  fund  of  altruistic  feeling  with 
which  cur  civilisation  has  become  equipped;  and  that 
this  fund  of  altruistic  feeling  has  been  the  char- 
acteristic product  of  the  religious  system  associated 
with  our  civilisation  —  whither  does  this  lead  us  ? 


244  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

What  guarantee  have  we  that  the  development  which 
has  been  proceeding  is  to  continue  ?  Do  not  the  signs 
of  the  times  indicate  a  decline  in  the  strength  and 
vitality  of  those  feelings  and  ideas  upon  which  our 
religious  systems  have  been  founded  ? 

It  is  to  be  feared  that  the  rationalistic  school  which 
has  been  in  the  ascendant  during  the  greater  part  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  and  which  has  raised  such  unstinted 
pseans  in  honour  of  the  intellect,  regarding  it  as  the 
triumphant  factor  of  progress  in  the  splendid  ages  to 
come,  is  destined  to  undergo  disillusionment  in  many 
respects.  Sooner  or  later  it  must  become  clear  to  all 
the  more  far-seeing  thinkers  amongst  this  party  that,  in 
so  far  as  the  Western  peoples  have  to  depend  solely 
on  their  intellectual  capacity,  and  the  results  of  their 
intellectual  development,  to  maintain  the  supremacy 
they  have  obtained  over  what  are  called  the  lower 
races,  they  are  leaning  on  a  false  hope.  As  time  goes 
on,  it  must  be  realised  that  the  promise  of  the  intellect 
in  this  respect  is  a  delusive  one.  All  the  conquests  of 
mind,  all  the  arts  and  inventions  of  life,  will  be  open  to 
the  rest  of  the  world  as  well  as  to  these  peoples,  and 
not  only  may  be  equally  shared  in  by  others,  but  may 
be  utilised  with  effect  against  the  Western  races  them- 
selves in  the  competition  of  life.  As  the  process  of 
development  proceeds  it  must  become  Increasingly 
evident  that  the  advanced  races  will  have  no  power, 
in  virtue  of  their  intellectual  characteristics  alone,  to 
continue  to  retain  the  position  of  ascendency  they  have 
hitherto  enjoyed  throughout  the  world,  and  that  if  they 
have  no  other  secret  of  rule  than  this,  the  sceptre  is 
destined  eventually  to  pass  from  them. 

But  is  this,  then,  the  message  of  evolutionary  science? 
Has  the  development  which  has  been  in  progress  through- 


ix        E  VOL  UTION  NO  T  PRIM  ARIL  Y  INTELLECTUAL      245 

out  the  centuries  no  other  meaning  than  that  the  social 
progress  of  the  Western  peoples  has  been,  after  all,  but 
a  passing  sport  of  life  ?  Do  we  only  see  therein  humanity 
condemned  to  an  aimless  Sisyphean  labour,  breasting  the 
long  slope  upwards  to  find  when  the  top  has  been 
reached  that  our  civilisation  must  slide  backwards  again 
through  a  period  of  squalid  ruin  and  decay,  leaving 
Lothing  gained  or  won  for  the  race  in  the  process 
of  the  strenuous  centuries  through  which  we  have 
passed  ? 

The  answer  to  these  questions,  which  it  appears  that 
evolutionary  science  must  give  to  the  biologist  who  has 
endeavoured  without  prepossession  or  prejudice  to  carry 
the  methods  -of  his  science  thus  far  into  the  midst  of 
the  phenomena  of  human  existence,  is  very  remarkable. 
It  would  appear  that  the  conclusion  that  Darwinian 
science  must  eventually  establish  is  that— 

The  evolution  which  is  slowly  proceeding  in  human 
society  is  not  primarily  intellectual  but  religious  in 
character. 

Since  man  became  a  social  creature  the  development 
of  his  intellectual  character  has  become  subordinate  to 
the  development  of  his  religious  character.  It  would 
appear  that  the  process  at  work  in  society  is  evolving 
religious  character  as  a  first  product,  and  intellectual 
capacity  only  so  far  as  it  can  be  associated  with  this 
quality.  In  other  words,  the  most  distinctive  feature 
of  human  evolution  as  a  whole  is,  that  through  the 
operation  of  the  law  of  natural  selection  the  race  must 
grow  ever  more  and  more  religious. 

Our  progress,  it  must  be  remembered,  is,  over  and 
above  everything  else,  social  progress.  It  is  always 
tending  to  secure,  in  an  increasing  degree,  the  subordina- 
tion of  the  present  interests  of  the  self-assertive  indi- 


246  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHA?. 

vidual  to  the  future  interests  of  society,  his  expanding 
intellect  notwithstanding.  The  manner  in  which  ap- 
parently this  result  is  being  attained  in  human  society 
is  by  the  slow  evolution  in  the  race  of  that  type  of 
individual  character  through  which  this  subordination 
can  be  most  effectively  secured.  This  type  appears  to 
be  that  which  would  be  described  in  popular  language 
as  the  religious  character.  The  winning  races  have  been 
those  in  which,  other  things  being  equal,  this  ch^jracter 
has  been  most  fully  developed.  Amongst  these  again 
the  races  that  have  acquired  an  ever-increasing  ascend- 
ency have  been  those  which  have  possessed  the  best 
ethical  systems;  that  is  to  say,  ethical  systems  which, 
having  secured  this  subordination  of  the  present 
interests  of  the  individual  to  the  larger  interests  of  an 
indefinitely  longer -lived  social  organism,  have  then 
allowed  the  fullest  possible  development  of  the  powers 
and  faculties  of  all  the  individuals  concerned.  We 
appear  to  have,  throughout  human  history,  two  well- 
marked  developments,  proceeding  simultaneously — a 
development  of  religious  character  in  the  individual  on 
the  one  hand,  and  an  evolution  in  the  character  of 
religious  beliefs  on  the  other. 

It  would  appear  also  that  we  must  regard  many 
of  the  estimates  which  have  been  made  and  the 
opinions  which  have  been  formed  in  the  past  as  to 
the  decay  of  religious  influences  and  tendencies  as 
altogether  untrustworthy.  The  subject  must  be  ap- 
proached from  a  much  higher  and  wider  standpoint 
than  any  hitherto  attempted.  When  the  nature  of 
the  process  of  evolution  we  are  undergoing  is  under- 
stood, it  must  be  recognised  that  we  have  been  estimat- 
ing the  vitality  of  religious  influences  on  a  wrong 
principle.  They  do  not  derive  their  strength  from  the 


ix        EVOLUTION  NOT  PRIMARILY  INTELLECTUAL      247 

support  given  to  them  by  the  intellect.  Any  form  of 
belief  which  could  claim  to  influence  conduct  solely 
because  of  its  sanction  from  individual  reason  would, 
in  fact,  from  the  nature  of  things,  be  incapable  of 
exercising  the  functions  of  a  religion  in  the  evolution 
of  society.  The  two  forces  are  inherently  antagonistic. 
The  intellect  has,  accordingly,  always  mistaken  the 
nature  of  religious  forces,  and  regarded  as  beneath 
notice  movements  which  have  had  within  them  the 
power  to  control  the  course  of  human  development 
for  hundreds  and  even  thousands  of  years.  Again 
the  plasticity  of  religious  systems  has  not  been  realised. 
These  systems  are  themselves — under  the  outward  ap- 
pearances of  rigidity,  and  while  always  preserving  their 
essential  characteristics  —  undergoing  profound  modi- 
fications. They  are  in  a  continuous  state  of  evolution. 
Lastly,  it  has  not  been  understood  or  taken  into  account 
that  the  great  deep-seated  evolutionary  forces  at  work 
in  society  are  not  operating  against  religious  influences 
and  in  favour  of  the  uncontrolled  sway  of  the  intellect. 
On  the  contrary,  it  seems  to  be  clear  that  these  influences 
have  been  always  and  everywhere  triumphant  in  the 
past,  and  that  it  is  a  first  principle  of  our  social  develop- 
ment that  they  must  continue  to  be  in  the  ascendant 
to  the  end,  whatever  the  future  may  have  in  store 
for  us. 

In  short,  the  law  of  natural  selection  would  appear 
to  be  operating  in  human  society  under  conditions,  a 
full  knowledge  of  which  is  likely  to  necessitate  a  very 
considerable  readjustment  of  the  standpoint  from  which 
the  subject  of  our  progress  has  been  hitherto  regarded. 
Let  us  now  see  whether  history  and  anthropology  furnish 
any  evidence  in  support  of  this  inference  that  the  pro- 
gress the  race  has  been  making  has  not  been  primarily 


348  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

progress  in  intellectual  development.  For  if  the  infer- 
ence be  correct  it  is  evident  (1)  that  our  intellectual 
progress  must  be  far  smaller,  less  significant,  and  more 
irregular  than  has  been  generally  supposed ;  (2)  that 
the  wide  interval  between  the  peoples  who  have  attained 
the  highest  social  development  and  the  lowest  races,  is 
not  mainly  the  result  of  a  difference  in  intellectual, 
but  of  a  difference  in  ethical  development ;  (3)  that 
there  is  not  that  direct  connection  between  high  social 
development  and  high  intellectual  development  which 
has  been  hitherto  almost  universally  assumed  to  exist. 

Now  any  one  who  has  been  closely  interested  in  that 
department  of  higher  thought  which  for  the  past  fifty 
years  has  been  concerned  with  the  subject  of  human 
progress  as  a  whole,  must  have  become  conscious  at 
times  of  a  peculiar  undercurrent  of  opinion  which 
seems  to  .set  in  an  opposite  direction  to  the  ordinary 
and  larger  current  of  thought  on  this  subject  of  pro- 
gress. Nothing  can  be  less  doubtful,  in  the  first  place, 
than  the  tendency  of  general  opinion  on  the  subject. 
By  the  world  at  large,  and  by  most  of  those  to  whom 
it  looks  for  information  and  guidance,  oiir  progress  has 
long  been  accepted  as  mainly  a  matter  of  intellectual 
development.  The  almost  universal  tendency  has  been 
to  regard  the  intellectual  factor  as  the  ruling  and 
dominant  one  in  the  advance  we  have  made.  The 
facts  upon  which  this  general  opinion  is  founded  are, 
indeed,  regarded  as  being  so  prominent,  and  their  im- 
port as  being  so  clear,  that  the  conclusion  is  usually 
accepted  as  beyond  dispute,  so  much  so  that  it  is 
scarcely  ever  felt  necessary  nowadays  to  subject  it  to 
any  general  and  detailed  scrutiny. 

The  principal  links  in  the  chain  of  evidence 
seem  to  stand  out  clearly,  and  to  have  all  the  ap- 


<x        E  VOL  UTION  NO  T  PRIM  ARIL  Y  INTELLECTUAL      249 

pearance  of  strength  and  stability.  One  of  the  un- 
questioned facts  of  biology  is  the  progressive  increase 
in  brain  development  as  we  rise  in  the  scale  of  life. 
The  increase  is  steady  and  continuous,  and  the  rule  is 
a. 'most  without  exception.  This,  too,  is  apparently 
only  what  we  should  have  to  expect  if  we  accept  the 
Darwinian  hypothesis ;  for  of  all  the  successful  varia- 
tions which  it  is  the  part  of  natural  selection  to 
accumulate,  none  can  have  been  more  profitable  in 
the  struggle  for  existence  than  those  which  increased 
the  intelligence  of  the  forms  of  life  engaged  therein. 
The  increase  of  brain  development,  therefore,  continues 
throughout  life  until  it  finally  culminates  in  man,  whom 
we  find  standing  in  unquestioned  supremacy  at  the 
head  of  creation,  and  holding  his  high  position  in  virtue 
of  the  exceptional  intellectual  development  to  which  he 
has  attained. 

When  the  anthropologist,  restricting  himself  to 
human  progress,  now  takes  up  the  tale,  it  may  be 
observed  that  he  proceeds,  almost  as  a  matter  of  course, 
to  marshal  his  facts  so  as  to  bring  out  the  same  develop- 
mental law.  Ethnological  treatises  are  filled  with  facts 
intended  to  exemplify  the  great  mental  gulf  which 
exists  between  the  members  of  the  higher  and  those  of 
the  lower  races  of  the  human  family,  and  with  others 
intended  to  establish  the  close  connection  which  is 
assumed  to  exist  between  high  social  development 
and  high  intellectual  development.  Popular  imagina- 
tion has,  in  like  manner,  its  own  evidences  in  view ; 
for  what  more  conclusive  argument,  it  is  asked,  can 
we  have  as  to  the  direct  connection  between  mental 
and  social  development  than  the  visible  difference  in  the 
world  to-day  between  the  position  of  the  lower  and  the 
higher  races,  and  the  characteristics  that  accompany 


250  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

this  difference  ?  On  the  one  side  we  have  to  witness 
the  higher  races  with  their  complex  civilisations,  high 
state  of  culture,  and  advanced  knowledge  of  the  arts 
and  sciences,  and  all  that  this  implies ;  and  on  the 
other  side  we  have  to  note  the  inferior  races  existing 
almost  in  a  state  of  nature,  possessing  and  desiring  only 
the  bare  necessities  of  an  animal  existence,  unacquainted 
with  the  higher  arts  and  sciences,  often  without  know- 
leuge  of  metals  or  agriculture,  and  not  infrequently  with 
no  words  in  their  language  to  express  numbers  higher 
in  the  scale  than  five. 

All  this  appears,  at  first  sight,  striking  and  im- 
pressive. Nevertheless,  strange  to  say,  a  tendency 
is  undoubtedly  to  be  observed  in  certain  quarters  to 
question  whether  the  assumption  which  underlies  all 
arguments  of  this  kind  has  ever  been  proved,  and 
whether  it  is  even  capable  of  proof.  If  the  attention 
of  the  observer  is  arrested,  and  if  he  proceeds  to  analyse 
for  himself  the  facts  upon  which  the  prevailing  view  as 
to  the  dominance  of  the  intellectual  factor  in  human 
progress  is  founded,  he  soon  becomes  conscious  of  such 
peculiar  discrepancies  and  such  extraordinary  and  unex- 
plained contradictions  that  he  finds  himself  driven  to 
the  conclusion  that  the  question  must  be  much  more 
difficult  and  complex  than  this  prevailing  view  would 
have  led  him  to  suppose. 

A  class  of  facts  which,  not  improbably,  will  attract 
attention  at  the  outset  is  that  respecting  the  ancient 
civilisations.  Since  the  revival  of  learning  in  Europe, 
there  may  be  traced  very  clearly  a  tendency  in  the 
minds  of  those  who  have  devoted  attention  to  the  sub- 
ject to  compare  the  average  intellectual  development 
in  the  old  civilisations,  and  more  particularly  in  that  of 
the  Greeks,  with  the  average  mental  development  undei 


ix        E  VOL  UTION  NO  T  PRIM  ARIL  Y  INTELLECTUAL      25 1 

our  own  civilisation,  and  always  to  the  disparagement 
of  the  latter.  This  tendency  is  more  remarkable  in 
recent  times,  as  it  is  quite  unaffected  by  the  prevailing 
disposition  (for  which  there  is  probably  every  justifica- 
tion) to  regard  our  own  civilisation  as  being,  nevertheless, 
the  very  highest,  both  in  kind  and  degree,  the  human 
race  has  so  far  reached. 

That  the  intellectual  development  reached  by  the 
ancients  should  have  excited  attention  in  the  period  of 
the  Renaissance  was  only  natural.  The  civilisations  of 
the  Greek  and  Roman  peoples  represented,  at  the  time 
of  the  reawakening  of  the  European  mind,  the  highest 
efforts  of  the  race  in  almost  every  department  of  in- 
tellectual activity,  and  it  was  inevitable  that  the  mental 
qualities  of  these  peoples,  and  of  the  Greeks  in  particular, 
should  excite  the  wonder  and  admiration  of  men  after 
the  long  period  of  intellectual  stagnation  through  which 
the  world  had  passed.  But  the  point  to  which  attention 
is  more  particularly  directed  is  that,  although  a  new  age 
has  since  arisen,  although  our  Western  civilisation  has 
developed  a  strength,  a  magnificence,  and  an  undoubted 
promise  which  overshadows  the  fame  and  the  achieve- 
ments of  these  former  civilisations,  the  fuller  knowledge 
and  the  more  accurate  methods  of  research  and  examina- 
tion of  our  own  time  have  only  tended  to  confirm  the 
view,  that  in  average  mental  development  we  are  not 
the  superiors  but  the  inferiors  of  these  ancient  peoples 
who  have  so  completely  dropped  out  of  the  human  struggle 
for  existence.  Judged  by  the  standard  of  intellectual 
development  alone,  we  of  the  modern  European  races 
who  seem  to  have  been  so  unmistakably  marked  out 
by  the  operation  of  the  law  of  natural  selection  to  play 
a  commanding  part  in  the  history  of  the  world,  have, 
in  fact,  no  claim  whatever  to  consider  ourselves  as  in 


252  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

advance  of  the  ancient  Greeks,  all  the  extraordinary 
progress  and  promise  of  the  modern  world  notwith- 
standing. 

During  the  nineteenth  century  the  opening  up  of 
many  widely-different  branches  of  research  has  brought 
a  crowd  of  workers  in  various  departments  into  close 
contact  with  the  intellectual  life  of  the  Greeks.  The 
unanimity  of  testimony  which  comes  from  these 
representatives  of  different  spheres  of  thought  as  to- 
the  high  average  standard  of  intellectual  development 
reached  by  this  remarkable  people,  is  very  striking.  It 
is  not  only  that  the  mental  calibre  of  isolated  minds  like 
Socrates,  Aristotle,  Plato,  or  Phidias,  appears  so  great 
when  carefully  measured,  and  the  state  of  knowledge 
and  the  circumstances  of  the  time  taken  into  account. 
It  is  rather  that  the  mental  average  of  the  whole  of  the 
people  should  have  been  so  unmistakably  high.  In  both 
respects  the  Greeks  seem  to  have  surpassed  us. 

Mr.  Lecky  regards  it  as  one  of  the  anomalies  of 
history  which  we  can  only  imperfectly  explain,  "  that 
within  the  narrow  limits  and  scanty  population  of  the 
Greek  States  should  have  arisen  men  who,  in  almost 
every  conceivable  form  of  genius,  in  philosophy,  in  epic, 
dramatic,  and  lyric  poetry,  in  written  and  spoken  elo- 
quence, in  statesmanship,  in  sculpture,  in  painting,  and 
probably  also  in  music,  should  have  attained  almost  or 
altogether  the  highest  limits  of  human  perfection."1 
Similar  views  expressed  forcibly,  though  withal  temper- 
ately, and  in  well-weighed  words,  may  be  found  scattered 
up  and  down  throughout  European  literature  at  the 
present  time.  Yet  it  is  not  from  what  may  be  called  the 
literary  and  philosophical  section  of  the  workers  who 
have  attempted  to  estimate  the  capacity  of  the  Greek 

1  History  of  European  ^f orals,  vol.  i.  p.  418. 


ix        E  VOL  UTION  NO  T  PRIM  ARIL  Y  INTELLECTUAL      253 

intellect  that  the  most  striking  testimony  comes.  Those 
who  may  fairly  claim  to  speak  with  authority  in  the 
name  of  science,  do  so  with  even  more  emphasis  and 
directness.  Mr.  Galton,  whose  anthropological  investi- 
gations, and  statistical  and  other  measurements  of  human 
faculties,  physical  and  mental,  under  a  wide  range  of 
circumstances,  give  him  a  peculiar  right  to  be  heard,  is 
of  opinion  that  "  the  ablest  race  of  whom  history  bears 
record  is  unquestionably  the  ancient  Greeks,  partly  be- 
cause their  masterpieces  in  the  principal  departments  of 
intellectual  activity  are  still  unsurpassed,  and  partly 
because  the  population  which  gave  birth  to  the 
creators  of  those  masterpieces  was  very  small."1  He 
asserts  that  we  have  no  men  to  put  by  the  side  of 
Socrates  and  Phidias,  and  that  "  the  millions  of  all 
Europe,  breeding  as  they  have  done  for  the  subsequent 
two  thousand  years,  have  never  produced  their  equals." 
He  also  considers  that  our  average  intellectual  develop- 
ment is  far  below  that  of  the  Greeks  as  a  people.  Sum- 
marising a  very  striking  argument,  he  continues — "  It 
follows  from  all  this,  that  the  average  ability  of  the 
Athenian  race  is,  on  the  lowest  possible  estimate,  very 
nearly  two  grades  higher  than  our  own  ;  that  is,  about  as 
much  as  our  race  is  above  that  of  the  African  negro. 
This  estimate,  which  may  seem  prodigious  to  some,  is 
confirmed  by  the  quick  intelligence  and  high  culture  of 
the  Athenian  commonalty,  before  whom  literary  works 
were  recited,  and  works  of  art  exhibited,  of  a  far  more 
severe  character  than  could  possibly  be  appreciated  by 
the  average  of  our  race,  the  calibre  of  whose  intellect  is 
easily  gauged  by  a  glance  at  the  contents  of  a  railway 
bookstall."2 

This  is  a  very  remarkable  expression  of  opinion, 

1  Hereditary  Genius,  p.  329.  8  Ibid,  p.  331. 


754  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

allowing  for  all  possible  considerations  which  may  be 
taken  to  detract  from  its  significance.  If  the  average 
mental  development  reached  by  the  Greeks  was  so 
superior  to  ours  as  this,  we  have  here  a  fact,  the  import 
of  which  in  human  evolution  has  not  yet  been  clearly 
perceived.  If  the  intellectual  ability  of  the  people  who 
developed  this  extinct  civilisation  is  to  be  taken  as 
being,  not  only  in  excess  of  that  of  those  modern 
European  races  \fhose  civilisation  is  winning  such  an 
ascendency  in  the  world  to-day,  but  as  being  as  far  above 
it  as  the  mental  ability  of  these  latter  is  above  that  of 
some  of  the  lowest  of  the  peoples  whom  they  have  dis- 
placed through  the  operation  of  natural  selection,  then 
it  seems  extremely  difficult  to  reconcile  this  fact  with 
an  unshaken  belief  in  any  theory  according  to  which 
intellectual  development  must  be  taken  as  the  dominant 
factor  in  human  evolution.  "We  may  be  prepared  to 
accept  Sir  Henry  Maine's  view  that  in  an  intellectual 
sense  nothing  moves  in  this  Western  world  that  is  not 
Greek  in  its  origin  ;  but  no  homage  of  this  kind  to  the 
Greek  intellect,  however  well  it  may  be  deserved,  can 
blind  our  eyes  to  the  fact  that  the  Greek  peoples  them- 
selves, like  the  ancient  Romans,  have  absolutely  dis- 
appeared in  the  human  struggle  for  existence.  Even 
their  blood  cannot  be  distinguished  in  the  populations 
of  large  tracts  of  Eastern  and  Southern  Europe,  and 
Western  Asia,  where  these  ruling  races  were  once  pre- 
dominant both  in  numbers  and  influence.  Judged 

D 

from  the  standpoint  of  the  evolutionist,  the  ancient 
Greek  races  were  as  far  below  the  European  peoples  of 
to-day  in  the  qualities  that  have  won  for  the  latter 
the  ascendency  they  have  obtained  in  the  greater 
part  of  the  world,  as  these  latter  are  held  to  be  below 
the  Greeks  in  intellectual  development.  The  human 


ix        EVOLUTION  NOT  PRIMARILY  INTELLECTUAL      255 

race  has,  beyond  possibility  of  doubt,  advanced  in  some 
direction  in  the  interval.  But  if  we  are  to  accept  the 
opinions  of  high  authorities,  the  development  has  not 
apparently  been  an  intellectual  development. 

If  we  continue  our  examination,  the  difficulties  in 
the  way  of  the  theory  as  to  the  direct  connection 
between  intellectual  development  and  social  progress  do 
not  tend  to  disappear,  but  rather  to  crowd  in  upon  us. 
Not  only  is  it  probable  that  the  ..average  intellectual 
development  of  the  races  which  are  winning  in  the 
struggle  for  existence  to-day  is  below  that  of  some  of 
the  peoples  which  have  long  ago  disappeared  from  the 
rivalry  of  life,  but  there  seems  every  reason  to  suppose 
that  the  average  intellectual  development  of  successive 
generations  amongst  ourselves  does  not  show  any  tend- 
ency to  rise  above  that  of  the  generations  immediately 
preceding  them. 

There  may  be  noticed  in  the  literature  of  the  time 
many  indications  that  a  conclusion  of  this  kind  is  already 
forcing  itself  on  the  minds  of  many  students  of  social 
phenomena  who  are  specialists  in  their  own  departments. 
A  proportion  of  these  expressions  of  opinion  come, 
doubtless,  from  those  who  by  training  and  temperament 
are  inclined  to  distrust  modern  progressive  tendencies  in 
general;  but  others  proceeding  from  authorities  who 
regard  our  development  as  tending  undoubtedly  up- 
wards, but  who  still  speak  with  doubt  and  hesitation  of 
our  intellectual  progress,  are  more  significant.  Few 
men,  for  instance,  have  had  a  more  extensive  and  pro- 
longed personal  acquaintance  with  the  English  people 
and  with  English  public  and  intellectual  life  gener- 
ally than  Mr.  Gladstone ;  and  from  the  position  he 
has  occupied  as  leader  of  the  progressive  party  for  a 
period  of  exceptional  duration,  few  would  probably  be 


256  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

less  likely  to  speak  disparagingly  of  the  amount  and 
nature  of  the  progress  which  we  have  made  and  are  still 
making.  Yet  he  is  reported  to  have  said  recently :  "I 
sometimes  say  that  I  do  not  see  that  progress  in  the 
development  of  the  brain  power  which  we  ought  to 
expect.  .  .  .  Development,  no  doubt,  is  a  slow  process, 
but  I  do  not  see  it  at  all.  I  do  not  think  we  are  stronger, 
but  weaker  than  men  of  the  Middle  Ages.  I  would  take 
it  as  low  down  as  the  men  of  the  sixteenth  century. 
The  men  of  the  sixteenth  century  were  strong  men, 
stronger  in  brain  power  than  our  men."  l 

Opinions  of  this  kind  are  justified  by  our  social  and 
vital  statistics  to  a  greater  extent  than  might  be  readily 
expected.  The  inquirer  finds  it  increasingly  difficult,  the 
further  he  proceeds,  to  assent  to  the  view  so  commonly 
held  that  the  rivalry  of  life  prevailing  amongst  the 
advanced  European  peoples  has  tended  in  the  past,  and 
is  tending  now,  to  produce  an  increase  of  that  kind  of 
intellectual  development  which  is  transmitted  from 
generation  to  generation  by  inheritance,  and  accumulated 
by  natural  selection.  The  facts  seem  to  point  to  a 
different  conclusion.  While  it  appears  to  be  beyond 
question  that  our  progress  towards  a  state  of  free  rivalry 
and  equality  of  opportunity  has  been  favourable  to  the 
development  of  certain  vigorous  and  virile  qualities 
that  have  given  the  leading  races  the  ascendency  they 
have  come  to  enjoy  in  the  world,  it  is  at  the  same  time 
in  the  highest  degree  doubtful  whether  it  has  been 
favourable  to  an  increased  intellectual  development 
of  the  kind  in  question.  One  of  the  most  marked  and 
characteristic  features  of  the  evolutionary  process  which 
has  been  in  progress  in  our  Western  civilisation  appears 
to  be  its  tendency  to  restrain  intellectual  development. 

1  Review  of  Reviews,  April  1892.      Interview  with  Mr.  W.  T.  Stead. 


ix        EVOLUTION  NOT  PRIMARILY  INTELLECTUAL      257 

To  understand  how  such  a  result  can  be  possible  in 
modern  society  it  is  desirable  to  carry  the  mind  back  a 
stage.  It  has  lately  become  well  known  that  the  attempts 
which  have  been  made  in  the  past  by  the  nobles  and 
power-holding  classes  in  almost  every  country  to  per- 
petuate the  stock  of  the  privileged  classes  to  which  they 
have  belonged  have  invariably  failed.  The  most  favour- 
able conditions  for  rendering  the  attempt  successful  have 
in  many  cases  prevailed ;  and  every  device  that  human 
ingenuity  could  invent  to  attain  the  end  in  view 
has  been  tried  by  these  classes  in  order  to  secure 
success.  But  the  result  has  always  been  the  same. 
After  a  limited  number  of  generations  the  stock  has 
become  extinct,  and  the  privileged  classes  have  been 
able  to  maintain  themselves  only  by  the  continual  in- 
fusion of  new  blood  and  intermarriage  with  the  classes- 
below  them.  "We  had,  for  instance,  amongst  the  Romans, 
in  the  Patricians  and  the  Plebeians,  what  Gibbon  calls 
"  the  proudest  and  most  perfect  separation  which  can  be 
found  in  any  age  or  country  between  the  nobles  and  the 
people."  Intermarriages  were  prohibited  by  the  laws  of 
the  XII.  Tables.  Wealth  and  honours,  the  offices  of  the 
state,  and  the  ceremonies  of  religion,  were  almost 
exclusively  possessed  by  the  Patricians ;  and  the  most 
jealous  pride  of  birth  reinforced  the  barriers  which  had 
been  erected  in  law,  sentiment,  and  religion  with  the 
object  of  preserving  the  purity  of  their  blood.  Yet 
Gibbon  records  that  the  Patrician  families  "  whose 
original  number  was  never  recruited  till  the  end  of  the 
Commonwealth,  either  failed  in  the  ordinary  course  of 
nature,  or  were  extinguished  in  so  many  foreign  or 
domestic  wars,  or,  through  a  want  of  merit  or  fortune, 
insensibly  mingled  with  the  mass  of  the  people.  Very 
few  remained  who  could  derive  their  pure  and  genuine 

s 


258  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

origin  from  the  infancy  of  the  city  or  even  from  that  of 
the  Republic  when  Caesar  and  Augustus,  Claudius  and 
Vespasian,  created  from  the  body  of  the  senate  a 
competent  number  of  new  Patrician  families  in  the  hope 
of  perpetuating  an  order  which  was  still  considered  as 
honourable  and  sacred."1  But  these  new  artificial 
supplies  soon  went  the  way  of  the  others,  until,  in  the 
reign  of  Constantine,  we  find  it  recorded  that  little  more 
was  left  than  "  a  vague  and  imperfect  tradition  that  the 
Patricians  had  once  been  the  first  of  the  Romans." 

The  existing  aristocratic  families  amongst  the  modern 
European  peoples  are  continually  undergoing  the  same 
process  of  decay.  The  manner  in  which  the  English 
aristocracy  (which  has  been  to  a  large  extent  recruited 
from  those  who,  in  the  first  instance,  attained  to  the 
position  by  force  of  character  or  intellect)  is  continually 
dying  out,  has  become  a  commonplace  of  knowledge 
since  the  investigations  of  Galton,  Evelyn  Shirley,  and 
others  threw  light  on  the  subject.  Only  five  out  of 
over  five  hundred  of  the  oldest  aristocratic  families  in 
England,  at  the  present  time,  can  trace  direct  descent 
through  the  male  line  to  the  fifteenth  century.  Despite 
the  innumerable  safeguards  with  which  they  have  been 
able  to  surround  themselves,  such  classes  seem  to  be 
quite  unable  to  keep  up  the  stock  for  more  than  a 
limited  number  of  generations ;  they  are  continually 
dying  out  at  the  top  and  being  recruited  from  below. 
A  similar  state  of  things  has  been  found  to  exist  in 
France  by  M.  Lageneau  and  others  who  have  investi- 
gated the  records  of  the  noble  families  of  that  country, 
and  it  is  known  to  prevail  also  in  nearly  all  countries 
where  an  aristocratic  class  exists. 

Now,  a  great  number  of  reasons  have  been  given 

1  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire,  voL  i.  chap.  xvii. 


ix        E  VOLUTION  NO  T  PRIM  ARIL  Y  INTELLECTUAL      259 

from  time  to  time  to  account  for  this  tendency  of 
aristocratic  families  to  die  out ;  and,  while  some  weight 
must  be  attached  to  most  of  them,  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  the  true  cause  is  a  very  simple  one  with 
no  mystery  whatever  about  it.  One  of  the  deepest 
instincts  implanted  in  human  nature,  as  the  result  of 
the  long  rivalry  through  which  we  have  come,  is  the 
desire  always  to  go  forward.  Man  is  never  satisfied 
with  his  position.  Having  attained  a  competency,  he 
is  no  more  content  than  when  the  bare  necessities  of 
existence  were  hardly  secured  to  him.  Nor  is  he 
usually  more  content  with  luxury  than  with  compet- 
ency. He  must,  if  possible,  always  go  onwards ;  he 
is  never  willing  to  go  backwards.  In  a  very  effective 
passage  Mr.  Henry  George  has  noted  how  characteristic 
this  feature  is  of  man;  and  it  becomes  progressively 
more  marked  as  we  ascend  from  the  lower  to  the  higher 
races.1  A  certain  restless  energy,  an  always  unsatisfied 

1  Mr.  George  says  of  man,  "He  is  the  only  animal  whose  desires  increase 
as  they  are  fed ;  the  only  animal  that  is  never  satisfied.  The  wants  of  every 
other  living  thing  are  uniform  and  fixed.  The  ox  of  to-day  aspires  to  no 
more  than  did  the  ox  when  man  first  yoked  him.  The  sea-gull  of  the  English 
Channel  who  poises  himself  above  the  swift  steamer,  wants  no  better  food 
or  lodging  than  the  gulls  who  circled  round  as  the  keels  of  Caesar's  galleys 
first  grated  on  a  British  beach.  Of  all  that  nature  offers  them,  be  it  ever 
so  abundant,  all  living  things  save  man  can  only  take,  and  only  care  for, 
enough  to  supply  wants  which  are  definite  and  fixed.  The  only  use  they 
can^  make  of  additional  supplies  or  additional  opportunities  is  to  multiply. 
But  not  so  with  man.  No  sooner  are  his  animal  wants  satisfied,  than  new 
wants  arise.  Food  he  wants  first,  as  does  the  beast ;  shelter  next,  as  does 
the  beast ;  and  these  given,  his  reproductive  instincts  assert  their  sway, 
as  do  those  of  the  beast.  But  here  man  and  beast  part  company.  The 
beast  never  goes  further ;  the  man  has  but  set  his  feet  on  the  first  step  of 
an  infinite  progression — a  progression  upon  which  the  beast  never  enters ; 
a  progression  away  from  and  above  the  beast.  The  demand  for  quantity 
once  satisfied,  he  seeks  quality.  The  very  desires  that  he  has  in  common 
with  the  beast  become  extended,  refined,  exalted.  It  is  not  merely 
hunger,  but  taste,  that  seeks  gratification  in  food  ;  in  clothes,  he  seeks  not 
merely  comfort,  but  adornment ;  the  rude  shelter  becomes  a  house ;  the 
undiscriininating  sexual  attraction  begins  to  transmute  itself  into  subtle 


26o  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

ambition  to  go  forward,  is  one  of  the  most  pronounced 
of  the  individual  and  racial  characteristics  of  the  win- 
ning sections  of  the  human  family. 

Now,  one  of  the  most  common  of  all  forms  in  which 
this  instinct  expresses  itself  is  the  unwillingness  of  men, 
in  a  state  of  civilisation  such  as  that  in  which  we  are 
living,  to  marry  and  bring  up  families  in  a  state  of  life 
lower  than  that  into  which  they  were  themselves  born. 
As  we  rise  beyond  the  middle  classes  the  task  becomes, 
however,  more  and  more  difficult  the  higher  we  go, 
until  amongst  the  highest  aristocratic  families  it  has 
long  ceased  to  be  possible  to  any  extent.  While  we 
have,  therefore,  on  the  one  hand,  the  constant  tend- 
ency of  aspiring  ability  to  rise  into  the  highest  class,  we 
have,  on  the  other  hand,  within  the  class  itself,  the 
equally  constant  tendency  towards  restriction  of 
numbers,  towards  celibacy,  and  towards  reversion  to 
the  classes  below.  This  is  the  largest  operating  cause 
constantly  tending  to  the  decay  and  extinction  of 
aristocratic  families. 

But  while  this  cause  has  been  already,  to  a  con- 
siderable extent,  recognised  in  the  limited  application 
here  noticed,  its  vital  connection  with  a  much  wider 
natural  law,  operating  throughout  society  at  large,  and 
upon  the  race  in  general,  has  scarcely  received  any 
attention.  Not  only  do  the  aristocratic  classes  die  out, 
but  it  would  appear  that  the  members  of  the  classes, 
into  which  it  is  always  the  tendency  of  a  very  prevalent 

influences,  and  the  hard  and  common  stock  of  animal  life  to  blossom  and 
to  bloom  into  shapes  of  delicate  beauty.  As  power  to  gratify  his  wants 
increases,  so  does  aspiration  grow.  Held  down  to  lower  levels  of  desire, 
Lucullus  will  sup  with  Lucullus ;  twelve  boars  turn  on  spite  that 
Antony's  mouthful  of  meat  may  be  done  to  a  turn  ;  every  kingdom  of 
Nature  be  ransacked  to  add  to  Cleopatra's  charms,  and  marble  colonnades 
and  hanging  gardens  and  pyramids  that  rival  the  hills  arise." — Progress 
<ntd  Poverty. 


ix        E  VOL  UTION  NOT  PRIM  ARIL  Y  INTELLECTUAL      261 

type  of  intellectual  ability  to  rise,  are  being  continually 
weeded  out  by  a  process  of  natural  selection,  which  it 
appears  to  have  been  the  effect  of  our  own  civilisation 
to  foster  to  a  peculiar  degree.  This  natural  law  was 
clearly  brought  out  in  a  remarkable  paper  read  by  Dr. 
Ogle  before  the  Statistical  Society  of  London  in  March 
1890.1  The  professional  and  independent  classes  (to  the 
level  of  which  the  intellectual  ability  of  all  the  classes 
below  continually  tends  to  rise)  marry,  says  the  author, 
considerably  later,  and  have  far  fewer  children  per 
marriage  than  the  classes  below  them.  For  instance, 
he  shows  that  the  mean  age  at  marriage  in  the  profes- 
sional and  independent  classes  is  seven  years  more 
advanced  for  men  and  four  years  more  advanced  for 
women  than  amongst  miners ;  and,  further,  "  that  the 
lower  the  station  in  life  the  earlier  the  age  at  which 
marriage  is  contracted,  and  that  the  difference,  in  this 
respect,  between  the  upper  and  lower  classes  is  very 
great  indeed"  In  addition  to  this  it  was  also  found 
that  the  professional  and  independent  classes  possessed 
a  proportion  of  permanent  bachelors  far  above  the  rest. 
We  have  here  apparently  the  same  tendency  extend- 
ing downwards  through  the  community,  and  continu- 
ally operating  to  prevent  the  intellectual  average  of 
one  generation  from  rising  above  the  level  of  that 
preceding  it.  The  same  law  of  population  has  been 
noticed  in  France,  where  it  is  found  that  the  agricultural 
population  have  more  children  than  the  industrial,  and 
that  still  fewer  children  are  born  to  families  where  the 
fathers  follow  a  liberal  profession.  It  operates  also  in 
other  countries,  and  it  does  not  at  all  tend  to  be 
restricted,  but  rather  the  reverse,  by  that  social  develop- 
ment taking  place  amongst  us  which  is  ever  tending  to 

1  Journal  of  the  Eoyal  Statistical  Society,  June  1890. 


262  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

lighten  the  burthens  of  existence  for  the  lower  classes  of 
the  community  at  the  general  expense. 

The  full  meaning  of  these  facts  is  not,  indeed,  im- 
mediately perceived.     Mr.  Galton,  in  a  striking  passage, 
has  dealt  with  what  he  described  as  the  heavy  doom  of 
any  subsection  of  a  prolific  people,  which  in  this  manner 
multiplied  less  rapidly  than  the  rest  of  the  community ; 
and  the  example  which  he  takes  may  be  profitably  quoted 
at  length.    He  says,  "  Suppose  two  men  M  and  N  about 
22  years  old,  each  of  them  having,  therefore,  the  expecta- 
tion of  living  to  the  age  of  55,  or  33  years  longer ;  and 
suppose  that  M  marries  at  once,  and  that  his  descendants, 
when  they  arrive  at  the  same  age,  do  the  same ;  but 
that  N  delays  until  he  has  laid  by  money,  and  does  not 
marry  before  he  is  33  years  old,  that  is  to  say,  11  years 
later    than    M,    and   his   descendants   also   follow   his 
example.     Let  us  further  make  the  two  very  moderate 
suppositions  that  the  early  marriages  of  race  M  result 
in  an  increase  of  1 J  in  the  next  generation,  and  also  in 
the  production  of  3 f  generations  in  a  century ;  while  the 
late  marriages  of  race  N  result  in  an  increase  of  only  l£ 
in  the  next  generation,  and  in  2£  generations  in  one 
century.     It  will  be  found  that  an  increase  of  1^-  in  each 
generation  accumulating  on  the  principle  of  compound 
interest   during    3f   generations  becomes  rather  more 
than  if-  times  the  original  amount,  while  an  increase  of 
1 J  for  2j  geneiations  is  barely  as  much  as  J  times  the 
original  amount.     Consequently  the  increase  of  the  race 
of  M  at  the  end  of  a  century  will  be  greater  than  that 
of  N,  in  the  ratio  of  18  to  7,  that  is  to  say,  it  will  be 
rather  more  than  2j  times  as  great.     In  two  centuries 
the  progeny  of  M  will  be  more  than  6  times,  and  in  three 
centuries  more  than  1 5  times  as  numerous  as  those  ofN."1 

1  Hereditary  Genius,  p.  340. 


TX        E  VOL  UTION  NO  T  PRIM  ARIL  Y  INTELLECTUAL      263 

These  are  noteworthy  conclusions.  It  is  evident  that 
our  society  must  be  considered  as  an  organism  which  is 
continually  renewing  itself  from  the  base,  and  dying  away 
in  those  upper  strata  into  which  it  is  the  tendency  of  a 
large  class  of  intellectual  ability  to  rise  ;  the  strata  which 
possess  the  reproductive  capacity  most  fully  being 
probably  the  lower  sections  of  the  middle  class. 
Taken  in  connection  with  the  probable  higher  intel- 
lectual development  of  past  races  now  extinct,  such 
facts  must  be  held  as  tending  to  establish  the  view 
that  our  intellectual  development  is  a  far  slower  and 
more  complex  process  than  we  have  hitherto  imagined 
it  to  be.  They  render  it  still  more  difficult  for  us  to 
adhere  to  the  view  according  to  which  human  progress 
is  to  be  regarded  as  being  mainly  a  matter  of  intellectual 
development.  This  latter  development  seems  to  be 
subject  to  larger  evolutionary  forces  which,  so  far  from 
furthering  it,  tend,  in  the  conditions  we  have  been  dis- 
cussing, to  check  and  restrain  it  in  a  most  marked 
manner. 

If  the  examination  is  continued,  and  we  now  carry 
forward  into  other  departments  our  scrutiny  of  the  facts 
upon  which  the  prevailing  opinion  which  identifies  social 
progress  with  intellectual  progress  is  founded,  it  is  only 
to  discover  that  difficulties  and  discrepancies  of  the  most 
striking  kind  continue  to  present  themselves  even  in 
quarters  where  they  might  be  least  expected.  A  great 
quantity  of  data  as  to  the  relative  cranial  development 
of  different  races,  existing  and  extinct,  has  been  collected 
by  anthropologists,  but  the  conclusions  to  which  many 
leading  authorities  have  come  as  the  result  of  a  com- 
parison of  these  data  are  not  a  little  interesting.  It 
may  be  observed  that  in  nearly  all  anthropological 
literature  of  this  kind,  the  position  which  is  assumed, 


264  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

almost  as  a  matter  of  course,  at  the  outset,  and  from 
which  all  the  argument  proceeds  is,  that  the  attainment 
by  any  people  of  a  state  of  high  social  development 
should  imply  a  corresponding  state  of  high  intellectual 
development.  But  having  started  with  these  premises, 
it  will  be  noticed  what  difficulties  present  themselves. 
Criticising  a  widely-quoted  table  of  the  cranial  capacity 
of  various  races,  published  by  M.  Topinard  in  his  An- 
thropologie,  De  Quatrefages  says,  its  chief  value  is 
to  show  into  what  serious  errors  an  estimation  of  the 
development  of  a  race  from  its  cranial  capacity  would 
lead  us.  "  By  such  an  estimation  the  troglodytes  of  the 
Cavern  of  L'Homme-Mort  would  be  superior  to  all 
races  enumerated  in  the  table,  including  contemporary 
Parisians."  * 

Further  on,  from  a  criticism  of  these  and  other 
features  of  the  same  table,  De  Quatrefages  reaches  the 
conclusion  that  "  there  can  be  no  real  relation  between 
the  dimensions  of  the  cranial  capacity  and  social  de- 
velopment.2 But  as  social  development  is  taken  by  the 
author  to  imply  a  corresponding  intellectual  develop- 
ment, the  two  being  often  used  as  interconvertible 
terms  by  anthropologists,  he  finds  himself,  therefore, 
driven  to  the  remarkable  conclusion  that  the  evidence 
generally  seems  to  "  establish  beyond  a  doubt  the  fact, 
which  already  clearly  results  from  the  comparison  of 
different  races,  namely,  that  the  development  of  the 
intellectual  faculties  of  man  is  to  a  great  extent  in- 
dependent of  the  capacity  of  the  cranium,  and  the 
volume  of  the  brain." 

If,  however,  we  come  to  examine  for  ourselves  that 
large  class  of  facts  drawn  from  contemporary  life,  upon 

1  The  Human  fyecies,  by  A.  De  Quatrefages,  chap.  xxx. 
*  Ibid.  3  Ibid. 


ix        EVOLUTION  NOT  PRIMARILY  INTELLECTUAL      265 

which  this  popular  opinion  as  to  the  intimate  connection 
between  the  high  social  development  and  the  high 
intellectual  development  of  a  people  is  founded,  it  is 
only  to  find  other  difficulties  in  the  way  of  this  view 
confronting  us.  The  evidence  upon  which  the  general 
opinion  as  to  the  existence  of  an  immeasurable  intel- 
lectual gulf  between  the  higher  and  the  lower  races  is 
based  is  certainly  of  a  very  marked  kind.  The  well- 
known  achievements  of  our  civilisation  in  all  the  arts  of 
life  are  pointed  to,  and  we  are  asked  to  compare  these 
with  the  results  obtained  by  races  lower  in  the  scale 
than  ourselves.  The  greatest  confusion  of  mind  pre- 
vails, however,  as  to  the  lessons  to  be  drawn  from  such 
a  state  of  things.  Conclusions  utterly  unwarrantable 
and  unjustifiable  as  to  the  nature  of  the  interval  which 
separates  us  from  what  are  called  the  lower  races  are 
constantly  drawn  from  these  facts. 

It  may  of  course  be  fully  admitted,  at  the  outset, 
that  the  achievements  of  the  human  mind,  in  our 
present  civilisation,  are  calculated  to  impress  the  mind 
in  the  highest  degree,  and  more  especially  when  they 
are  compared  with  the  absence  of  any  such  imposing 
results  amongst  the  lower  races.  To  communicate 
instantaneously,  and  to  speak  with  each  other  when 
separated  by  great  distances;  to  compute  years  in 
advance,  and  accurately  to  a  fraction  of  time,  the 
movements  of  heavenly  bodies  distant  from  us  by  many 
millions  of  miles ;  to  take  a  mechanical  impression  of 
spoken  words,  and  to  reproduce  them  after  the  lapse  of 
an  indefinite  period  ,  to  describe  with  absolute  know- 
ledge the  composition  of  fixed  stars,  through  analysis, 
with  delicate  instruments,  of  light  which  left  its 
source  before  the  dawn  of  our  history — all  appear  stu- 
pendous achievements  of  the  human  intellect.  In  like 


266  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

manner  the  complexity  of  our  civilised  life,  our  trades 
and  manufactures,  and  the  implements  and  machinery 
with  which  they  are  carried  on,  as  well  as  the  stored-up 
knowledge  from  which  they  all  result,  would  appear 
to  separate  us  by  an  immense  gulf  from  the  lower 
races. 

But  to  take,  as  is  often  done,  such  results  to  be  the 
measure  of  the  intellectual  difference  separating  us 
from  the  lower  races,  is  clearly  a  most  short-sighted  and 
altogether  unjustifiable  procedure.  It  only  needs  a  little 
reflection  to  enable  us  to  perceive  that  the  marvellous 
accomplishments  of  modern  civilisation  are  primarily  the 
measure  of  the  social  stability  and  social  efficiency,  and 
not  of  the  intellectual  pre-eminence,  of  the  peoples  who 
have  produced  them.  They  do  not  necessarily  imply  any 
extraordinary  intellectual  development  in  ourselves  at 
all.  They  are  not  the  colossal  products  of  individual 
minds  amongst  us  ;  they  are  all  the  results  of  small  ac- 
cumulations of  knowledge  slowly  and  painfully  made  and 
added  to  by  many  minds  through  an  indefinite  number 
of  generations  in  the  past,  every  addition  to  this  store 
of  knowledge  affording  still  greater  facilities  for  further 
additions.  It  must  not  be  assumed,  even  of  the  minds 
that  have  from  time  to  time  made  considerable 
additions  to  this  common  stock  of  accumulated  know- 
ledge, that  they  have  been  separated  from  the  general 
average,  or  from  the  minds  of  other  races  of  men  of 
lower  social  development,  by  the  immense  intellectual 
interval  which  each  achievement  standing  by  itself 
would  seem  to  imply. 

For,  it  must  be  remembered  that  even  the  ablest 
men  amongst  us  whose  names  go  down  to  history  con- 
nected with  great  discoveries  and  inventions,  have  each 
in  reality  advanced  the  sum  of  knowledge  by  a  com- 


ix        EVOLUTION  NOT  PRIMARILY  INTELLECTUAL      267 

paratively  small  addition.  In  the  fulness  of  time,  and 
when  the  ground  has  been  slowly  and  laboriously  pre- 
pared for  it  by  a  vast  army  of  workers,  the  great  idea 
fructifies  and  the  discovery  is  made.  It  is,  in  fact, 
not  the  work  of  one,  but  of  a  great  number  of 
persons  whose  previous  work  has  led  up  to  it.  How 
true  it  is  that  all  the  great  ideas  have  been  the  pro- 
ducts of  the  time  rather  than  of  individuals,  may  be 
the  more  readily  realised  when  it  is  remembered  that 
as  regards  a  large  number  of  them,  there  have  been 
rival  claims  for  the  honour  of  authorship  put  forward  by 
persons  who,  working  quite  independently,  have  arrived 
at  like  results  almost  simultaneously.  Thus  rival 
and  independent  claims  have  been  made  for  the  dis- 
covery of  the  Differential  Calculus,  the  doctrine  of  the 
Conservation  of  Energy,  the  Evolution  theory,  the 
interpretation  of  Egyptian  Hieroglyphics,  the  Undula- 
tory  theory  of  Light ;  for  the  invention  of  the  Steam 
Engine,  the  method  of  Spectrum  Analysis,  the  Telegraph 
and  the  Telephone,  as  well  as  many  other  of  the  dis- 
coveries and  inventions  which  have  been  epoch-making 
in  the  history  of  the  world.  No  great  idea  can,  in 
truth,  be  said  to  have  been  the  product  of  a  single  mind. 
As  a  recent  socialist  writer  very  aptly  and  truthfully 
remarks,  "  All  that  man  produces  to-day  more  than  did 
his  cave-dwelling  ancestors,  he  produces  by  virtue  of 
the  accumulated  achievements,  inventions,  and  improve- 
ments of  the  intervening  generations,  together  with  the 
social  and  industrial  machinery  which  is  their  legacy," 
and  further,  "  Nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine  parts  out 
of  the  thousand  of  every  man's  produce  are  the  result 
of  his  social  inheritance  and  environment." l  This  is  so ; 

1  E.  Bellamy,  Contemporary  Review,  July  1890,  "What  Nationalism 
means." 


268  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

and  it  is,  if  possible,  even  more  true  of  the  work  of  our 
brains  than  of  the  work  of  our  hands. 

When,  however,  we  turn  now  to  that  great  body  of 
literature  which  deals  with  the  comparative  develop- 
ment of  the  inferior  races,  it  is  not  a  little  surprising  to 
find  that  one  of  its  features  is  the  tendency  almost  in- 
variably displayed  therein,  even  by  high  authorities,  to 
quite  lose  sight  of  and  ignore  the  foregoing  considera- 
tions. Thus,  one  of  the  commonest  assumptions  to  be 
met  with  in  anthropological  literature  is  that  that  kind 
of  development  which  is  the  result,  almost  exclusively, 
of  social  inheritance,  and  which  must,  therefore,  be 
regarded  only  as  the  true  mark  and  evidence  of  the 
high  social  qualities  of  a  race,  is  to  be  taken  as  evidence 
of  the  high  intellectual  development  of  that  race. 
And  as  a  consequence  we  find  the  converse  assump- 
tion equally  common.  If  a  race  is  without  qualities 
contributing  to  social  efficiency,  and  has  consequently 
advanced  little  towards  social  development,  its  members 
have  hitherto  been  relegated  (equally  unhesitatingly 
and  as  a  matter  of  course)  to  a  corresponding  grade  of 
intellectual  impotency. 

We  have,  accordingly,  presented  to  us  the  strange  sight 
of  those  who  make  comparisons  between  ourselves  and 
the  lower  races,  taking  as  the  measure  of  our  individual 
mental  stature  the  whole  of  that  vast  intellectual  ac- 
cumulation which  belongs  to  society  and  past  genera- 
tions, and  which  is,  strictly  speaking,  the  true  measure  of 
our  social  efficiency.  The  result  is  of  course  highly  flatter- 
ing to  our  intellectual  pride  when  we  are  compared  in 
this  way  with  races  of  low  social  efficiency,  and,  there- 
fore, of  no  social  history.  It  is  to  some  extent  as  if 
one  standing  on  the  dome  of  St.  Paul's  should  for- 
get for  a  moment  the  vast  structure  beneath  him  and 


ix        EVOLUTION  NOT  PRIMARILY  INTELLECTUAL      269 

triumphantly  call  the  world  to  witness  the  immense 
difference  between  his  physical  stature  and  that  of  the 
persons  below  him  in  the  street. 

Let  us  examine  in  detail  the  evidence  generally 
accepted  as  tending  to  exhibit  the  great  intellectual 
difforence  between  the  members  of  the  higher  and  the 
lower  races,  and  see  what  conclusions  we  are  warranted 
in  drawing  therefrom.  It  will  be  noticed  that  there  is 
a  class  of  facts  usually  accepted  as  evidence  of  this 
mental  interval  which  attracts  attention  before  any 
other.  The  lower  races  have,  as  a  rule,  no  words  in 
their  languages  to  express  many  of  the  more  complex 
ideas  and  relationships  that  have  been  familiar  to 
members  of  the  higher  races  from  childhood,  and  a 
knowledge  of  which  has  become  almost  second  nature 
to  these  latter.  For  instance,  savage  races  are  nearly 
always  without  any  but  the  most  elementary  conception 
of  numbers.  They  are  generally  unable  to  count,  and 
not  infrequently  they  are  without  words  in  their 
language  to  express  numbers  higher  than  five  or  even 
three.  This  last-mentioned  fact  has  been  very  generally 
noticed ;  scarcely  any  other  peculiarity  seems  to  make 
so  much  impression  upon  members  of  the  higher  races 
when  first  brought  into  contact  with  uncivilised  men. 
Yet  the  peoples  who  are  in  this  state  often  possess  flocks 
and  herds,  and  each  owner  knows  when  he  has  got  all 
his  own  cattle  and  will  instantly  detect  the  loss  of  one ; 
not,  however,  because  he  can  tell  how  many  he  possesses, 
but  only  because  he  remembers  each  one  individually. 

Mr.  Francis  Galton  relates  in  this  connection  incidents 
in  his  experience  with  the  Damaras  which  have  become 
classical  in  anthropological  literature.  They  have  been 
universally  quoted  as  exhibiting  the  great  mental  interval 
between  the  higher  and  the  lower  races.  He  states  : 


270  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

"When  bartering  is  going  on  each  sheep  must  be  paid 
for  separately.  Thus,  suppose  two  sticks  of  tobacco  to 
be  the  rate  of  exchange  for  one  sheep,  it  would  sorely 
puzzle  a  Damara  to  take  two  sheep  and  to  give  him  four 
sticks."1  He  relates  having  attempted  a  transaction  of 
this  kind,  and  the  resulting  confusion  of  the  Damara  is 
described.  It  continued  "  till  two  sticks  were  put  into 
his  hand  and  one  sheep  driven  away,  and  then  the  other 
two  sticks  given  him  and  the  second  sheep  driven 
away." 2  When  a  heifer  was  bought  for  ten  sticks  of 
tobacco,  the  large  hands  of  the  native  were  spread  out 
on  the  ground  and  a  stick  had  to  be  placed  on  each 
finger. 

The  effect  of  experiences  of  this  kind — and  they  are 
quoted  at  great  length  by  most  travellers  and  explorers 
who  have  come  into  contact  with  uncivilised  races — is 
nearly  always  the  same  on  European  observers.  The 
impression  produced  thereby  on  Mr.  Galton's  mind  is, 
indeed,  made  quite  clear.  He  forms,  in  consequence,  a 
very  low  estimate  of  the  mental  capacity  of  the  Damaras; 
BO  much  so,  that  a  little  further  on  he  relates  that  while 
he  watched  a  Damara  floundering  hopelessly  in  a  calcula- 
tion on  one  side,  he  observed  his  spaniel  equally  em- 
barrassed on  the  other.  She  had  half  a  dozen  new-born 
puppies,  and  two  or  three  had  been  removed,  but  she 
could  not  make  out  if  all  were  present.  She  evidently 
had  a  vague  notion  of  counting,  but  the  figures  were  too 
large  for  her ;  and  Mr.  Galton  draws  the  conclusion  that, 
taking  the  two,  the  dog  and  the  Damara,  "the  comparison 
reflected  no  great  honour  on  the  man." 8 

The  fallacy  which  underlies  the  reasoning  based 
on  facts  of  this  kind,  by  which  the  mental  inferiority 

1  Narrative  of  an  Explorer  in  Tropical  South  Africa,  p.  133 
*  Ibid.  »  Ibid. 


ix        E  VOL  UTION  NO  T  PRIM  A  RIL  Y  INTELLECTUAL      27 1 

of  uncivilised  races  is  supposed  to  be  proved,  is  not 
immediately  apparent ;  but  an  undoubted  and  extra- 
ordinary fallacy  exists  nevertheless.  It  is  one  of  the 
commonest  examples  of  that  prevailing  tendency  to 
confuse  the  mental  equipment  which  we  receive  from 
the  civilisation  to  which  we  belong,  with  the  mental 
capacity  with  which  nature  has  endowed  us.  Mr. 
Galton  might,  by  a  very  simple  experiment,  have  con- 
vinced himself  at  any  time  that  most  of  us — proud 
inheritors  of  "  the  supreme  Caucasian  brain  "  though  'we 
be — possess  as  individuals  only  much  the  same  natural 
grasp  of  numbers  as  the  Damara  of  whom  he  had  so  low 
an  opinion.  Any  one  who  doubts  this  may  try  the 
experiment  for  himself.  Let  him,  next  time  he  makes 
a  purchase  and  receives  a  number  of  coins  in  change, 
say  whether  or  not  he  has  received  the  correct  number 
without  counting,  and  he  will  probably  discover  that 
above  a  very  low  number  he  has  no  natural  power  of 
telling  the  exact  number  of  coins  he  is  looking  at. 

But  he  can  count  them,  it  will  be  said.  Very  true ; 
it  is  here  that  the  fallacy  begins.  We  make  the  mistake 
of  reckoning  this  power  of  counting  as  part  of  the 
intellectual  equipment  that  we  individuals  of  the 
civilised  races  have  received  from  nature.  We  have 
only  to  reflect  to  perceive  that  it  is  nothing  of  the  kind. 
Our  scale  of  numbers  is  nothing  more  than  a  kind  of 
mental  tape-measure,  with  which  we  are  provided  ready- 
made  by  the  society  to  which  we  belong,  and  which  we 
apply  to  aggregates  of  numbers  just  as  we  should  an 
ordinary  tape-measure  to  aggregates  of  units  of  length  to 
determine  how  many  there  are.  But  this  mental  scale 
is  certainly  not  born  with  us.  It  has  been  the  slowly- 
perfected  product  of  an  immense  number  of  generations 
stretching  back  into  the  dim  obscurity  of  the  past ;  and 


272  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHM>. 

we  obtain  the  power  which  it  gives  us  over  uncivilised 
man,  not  as  a  gift  direct  from  nature  to  ourselves,  but 
as  part  of  the  accumulated  stock  of  knowledge  of  the 
civilisation  to  which  we  belong.  Without  this  scale  we 
should,  in  fact,  have  to  resort  to  the  method  of  uncivil- 
ised man  with  his  cattle — we  should  have  to  identify  and 
remember  each  unit  individually.  When  we  count  we 
are  really  performing  no  higher  intellectual  operation 
than  the  Damara  who  told  his  tobacco  sticks  against  his 
fingers.  The  mechanical  scale  with  which  we  are  pro- 
vided by  society  in  our  system  of  numeration  is,  of 
course,  a  far  superior  one.  But  that  is  all ;  for,  when 
we  count,  we  only  tell  off  the  units  against  it  one  by  one 
in  exactly  the  same  manner  that  the  savage  tells  them 
off  against  his  fingers. 

The  true  lesson  of  this,  and  of  the  large  class  of 
similar  experiences  commonly  supposed  to  prove  the 
low  mental  development  of  uncivilised  man,  is  not  that 
he  is  so  inferior  to  ourselves,  intellectually,  as  to  be 
almost  on  a  level  with  Mr.  Galton's  dog,  but  that  he  is 
almost  always  the  representative  of  a  race  of  low  social 
efficiency  with  consequently  no  social  history.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  individuals  of  civilised  races  with  whom 
he  is  contrasted  are  the  members  of  a  community  with 
a  long  record  of  social  stability  and  continuity,  which  is, 
therefore,  in  possession  of  a  vast  accumulated  store  of 
knowledge  inherited  from  past  generations.  That  is  to 
say,  we  are  the  representatives  of  peoples  necessarily 
possessing  high  social  qualities,  but  not  by  any  means 
and  to  the  same  degree  these  high  intellectual  qualities 
we  so  readily  assume. 

It  will  be  found,  if  we  continue  our  examination  in 
other  directions,  that  this  exaggerated  conception  of  our 
intellectual  superiority  to  races  of  lower  social  develop- 


ix        E  VOL  UTION  NO  T  PRIM  ARIL  Y  INTELLECTUA  L      273 

merit  rests  to  a  great  extent  on  the  same  precarious 
foundations.  Facts  which  seem  to  be  difficult,  if  not 
impossible,  to  reconcile  with  the  prevailing  views  as  to 
our  intellectual  superiority  over  the  peoples  known  as  the 
lower  races,  continue  to  be  encountered  on  every  side. 
The  European  races  in  India,  if  judged  by  those  qualities 
which  win  for  a  race  ascendency  in  the  world,  have  some 
claim  to  consider  themselves  the  superiors  of  the  natives 
over  whom  they  rule.  Yet,  since  the  development  of  an 
efficient  system  of  higher  education  in  India,  these 
natives  have  proved  themselves  the  rivals  of  Europeans 
in  European  branches  of  learning.  Indian  and  Burmese 
students,  who  have  come  to  England  to  be  trained 
for  the  legal  and  other  professions,  have  proved  them- 
selves to  be  not  the  inferiors  of  their  European  col- 
leagues ;  and  they  have,  from  time  to  time,  equalled 
and  even  surpassed  the  best  English  students  against 
whom  they  have  been  matched. 

Even  those  races  which  are  melting  away  at  the 
mere  contact  of  European  civilisation  supply  evi- 
dence which  appears  to  be  quite  irreconcilable  with  the 
prevailing  view  as  to  their  great  intellectual  inferiority. 
The  Maoris  in  New  Zealand,  though  they  are  slowly 
disappearing  before  the  race  of  higher  social  efficiency 
with  which  they  have  come  into  contact,  do  not  appear 
to  show  any  intellectual  incapacity  for  assimilating 
European  ideas,  or  for  acquiring  proficiency  and  dis- 
tinction in  any  branch  of  European  learning.  Although 
they  have,  within  fifty  years,  dwindled  from  80,000  to 
40,000,  and  still  continue  to  make  rapid  strides  on  the 
downward  path,  the  Registrar-General  of  New  Zealand, 
in  a  recent  report  on  the  condition  of  the  colony,  says  of 
them  that  they  possess  fine  characteristics,  both  mental 
and  physical,  and  readily  adopt  the  manners  and  customs 


274  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

of  their  civilised  neighbours.  He  asserts  that  in  mental 
qualifications  they  can  hardly  be  deemed  naturally 
an  inferior  race,  and  that  the  native  members  of  both 
the  Legislative  Council  and  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives take  a  dignified,  active,  and  intelligent  part  in  the 
debates,  especially  in  those  having  any  reference  to 
Maori  interests.1 

Even  the  Australian  aborigines  seem  to  provide  us 
with  facts  strangely  at  variance  with  the  prevailing 
theories.  The  Australian  native  has  been,  by  the 
common  consent  of  the  civilised  world,  placed  intellect- 
ually almost  at  the  bottom  of  the  list  of  the  existing 
races  comprising  the  human  family.  He  has  been 
the  zero  from  which  anthropologists  and  ethnologists 
have  long  reckoned  our  intellectual  progress  up- 
wards. His  mental  capacity  is  universally  accepted  as 
being  of  a  very  low  order.  Yet  this  despised  member 
of  the  race,  possessing  usually  no  words  in  his  native 
languages  for  numbers  above  three,  whose  mental 
capacity  is  reckoned  degrees  lower  than  that  of  the 
Damara  whom  Mr.  Galton  compared  disparagingly 
with  his  dog,  exhibits  under  our  eyes  powers  of  mind 
that  should  cause  us  seriously  to  reflect  before  com- 
mitting ourselves  hastily  to  current  theories  as  to  the 
immense  mental  gulf  between  him  and  ourselves.  It  is 
somewhat  startling,  for  instance,  to  read  that  in  the 
state  schools  in  the  Australian  colonies  it  has  been 
observed  that  aboriginal  children  learn  quite  as  easily 
and  rapidly  as  children  of  European  parents ;  and, 
lately,  that  "  for  three  consecutive  years  the  aboriginal 
school  at  Remahyack,  in  Victoria,  stood  highest  of  all 
the  state  schools  of  the  colony  in  examination  results, 

1  Report  from  the  Registrar-General  of  New  Zealand  on  the  Condi* 
tion  of  the  Colony.     Vide  Nature,  24th  October  1889. 


;x        E  VOL  UTION  NO  T  PRIM  ARIL  Y  INTELLECTUAL      275 

obtaining  100  per  cent  of  marks."1  The  same  facts 
present  themselves  in  the  United  States.  The  children 
of  the  large  negro  population  in  that  country  are  on 
just  the  same  footing  as  children  of  the  white  popula- 
tion in  the  public  elementary  schools.  Yet  the  negro 
children  exhibit  no  intellectual  inferiority;  they  make 
just  the  same  progress  in  the  subjects  taught  as  do  the 
children  of  white  parents,  and  the  deficiency  they 
exhibit  later  in  life  is  of  quite  a  different  kind. 

Lastly,  if  we  closely  examine  the  statements  of 
those  who,  while  acknowledging  that  the  lower  races 
show  this  ability  to  learn  easily  and  rapidly  in  suitable 
circumstances,  nevertheless  maintain  that  they  do 
not  make  progress  beyond  a  certain  point,  we  find  that 
the  causes  to  which  this  result  is  attributed  by  discrimi- 
nating observers  throw  a  flood  of  light  on  the  whole 
subject.  Members  of  the  inferior  races,  it  is  pointed 
out,  scarcely  ever  possess  those  qualities  of  intense 
application  and  of  prolonged  persevering  effort  without 
which  it  is  absolutely  impossible  to  obtain  high  pro- 
ficiency in  any  branch  of  learning.  Exactly  so  ;  it  is  here 
that  we  have  the  true  cause  of  the  deficiency  displayed 
by  the  lower  races.  But  such  a  deficiency  is  not  to  be 
described  as  profound  intellectual  inferiority.  The 
lacking  qualities  are  not  intellectual  qualities  at  all ; 
they  are  precisely  those  which  contribute  in  so  high  a 
degree  to  social  efficiency  and  racial  ascendency,  and  they 
are,  consequently,  as  might  be  expected,  the  invariable 
inheritance  of  those  races  which  have  reached  a  state  of 
high  social  development,  and  of  those  races  only. 

Again,  these  considerations   acquire  a  certain  sig- 

1  Rev.  John  Mathew  on  the  Australian  Aborigines.  Proceedings  of 
the  Royal  Society  of  New  South  Wales,  vol.  xxii.  part  ii.  Quoted  from 
summary  in  Nature,  25th  December  1890. 


276  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

nificance,  which  must  not  be  passed  unnoticed,  from  the 
current  history  of  the  peoples  comprised  in  our  Western 
civilisation.  In  view  of  the  profound  intermixture  of 
races  that  has  taken  place  in  almost  every  European 
country,  and  that  is  taking  place  on  a  large  scale  in 
America  at  the  present  day,  it  is,  strictly  speaking, 
inadmissible  to  speak  of  any  particular  nationality  as 
representing  any  particular  race.  National  types  of 
character,  in  so  far  as  they  have  had  a  racial  origin, 
probably  result  from  blends  in  varying  degrees  of  the 
mental  characteristics  of  the  races  which  have  gone  to 
make  up  the  nations.  Nevertheless  we  may  still, 
within  limitations,  draw  certain  conclusions  as  to  the 
racial  characteristics  of  some  of  the  peoples  who  have 
become  ingredients  in  our  modern  nationalities.  Certain 
characteristics  of  two  such  well-defined  groups  as  the 
Celtic  and  Teutonic  peoples  may  still  be  clearly 
distinguished. 

Now  there  can  be  little  doubt  that,  as  regards  the 
peoples  of  the  Celtic  stock,  they  must  be  classed  high 
intellectually.  We  must  recognise  this,  both  from  a 
review  of  the  history  of  individuals  and  from  an  exam- 
ination of  the  history  of  the  countries  in  which  the 
characteristics  of  these  peoples  have  found  the  fullest 
and  truest  expression  they  have  obtained  in  our  civilisa- 
tion. If  we  take  France,  which  of  the  three  leading 
countries  of  Western  Europe  probably  possesses  the 
largest  leaven  of  Celtic  blood,  any  impartial  person,  who 
had  fairly  considered  the  evidence,  would  probably  find 
himself  compelled  to  admit  that  a  very  strong  if  not 
a  conclusive  case  could  be  made  out  for  placing  the 
French  people  a  degree  higher  as  regards  certain  in- 
tellectual characteristics  than  any  other  of  the  Western 
peoples.  When  all  due  allowance  is  made  for  national 


ix        EVOLUTION  NOT  PRIMARILY  INTELLECTUAL      277 

jealousies,  the  extent  to  which  this  general  obligation  to 
the  French  intellect  is  acknowledged  by  discriminating 
observers  in  various  countries  is  remarkable.  The  in- 
fluence of  the  French  intellect  is,  in  fact,  felt  through- 
out the  whole  fabric  of  our  "Western  civilisation ;  in  the 
entire  region  of  politics,  in  nearly  every  branch  of  art, 
and  in  every  department  of  higher  thought. 

Even  where  the  intellect  of  the  Teutonic  peoples  ob- 
tains the  highest  possible  results,  it  may  be  noticed  that 
there  is  a  certain  distinction  in  kind  to  be  made  between 
the  two  qualities  of  intellect.  The  Teutonic  peoples 
tend,  as  a  rule,  to  obtain  the  most  striking  intellectual 
results  where  profound  research,  painstaking,  conscien- 
tious endeavour,  and  the  laborious  piecing  together  and 
building  up  of  the  fabric  of  knowledge  go  to  produce 
the  highest  effects.  But  the  idealism  of  the  French 
mind  is  largely  wanting.  That  light,  yet  agile  and 
athletic  grasp  of  principles  and  ideas  which  is  char- 
acteristic of  the  French  mind  is  to  some  extent 
missing.  Certain  qualities,  too,  peculiar  to  the  ancient 
Greek  mind,  seem  to  find  a  truer  expression  amongst  the 
French  people  than  they  do  elsewhere  in  our  civilisation. 
Even  in  the  art  of  the  Teutonic  peoples  we  seem  to 
miss  some  of  the  highest  qualities — a  deficiency  which 
has  been  sometimes  defined  as  that  of  a  people  in 
whom  the  ethical  sense  overshadows  the  aesthetic.  Any 
conscientious  observer,  when  first  brought  into  close 
contact  with  the  French  mind,  must  feel  that  there  is 
an  indefinite  something  in  it  of  a  distinctly  high  intel- 
lectual order  which  is  not  native  to  either  the  German 
or  the  English  peoples.  It  is  felt  in  the  current  litera- 
ture and  the  current  art  of  the  time  no  less  than  in  the 
highest  products  of  the  national  genius  in  the  past. 
In  the  streets  of  the  capital  and  the  provincial  towns. 


278  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

in  the  public  buildings,  in  the  churches,  temples,  and 
art  galleries,  even  in  the  bookstalls,  one  encounters  at 
every  turn  something  of  that  noble  intellectual  sense 
of  the  ideal  and  the  appropriate  which  was  characteristic 
of  the  Greek  mind.1 

But  while  all  this  must  be  acknowledged,  the  fact, 
nevertheless,  remains  that  the  Teutonic  peoples  un- 
doubtedly possess  certain  equally  characteristic  qualities, 
not  in  themselves  intellectual,  which  contribute  in  a 
higher  degree  to  social  efficiency,  and  which — having  in 
view  the  manner  in  which  natural  selection  is  operating 
and  the  direction  in  which  the  evolution  of  the  race  is 
proceeding  —  must  apparently  be  pronounced  to  be 
greatly  more  important  than  these  merely  intellectual 
qualities.  At  a  future  time,  when  the  history  of  the 
nineteenth  century  comes  to  be  written  with  that  sense 
of  proportion  which  distance  alone  can  give,  it  will  be 
perceived  that  there  are  two  great  features  of  this  cen- 
tury which  give  a  distinctive  character  to  its  history, 
and  by  the  side  of  which  all  other  developments  and 
events  will  appear  dwarfed  and  insignificant.  The  first 
is  the  complete  and  absolute  triumph  throughout  our 
"Western  civilisation  of  the  principles  of  that  political 
idealism  which  found  expression  in  the  French  Eevolu- 
tion.  The  second  is  the  equally  triumphant  and  over- 
whelming expansion  of  the  peoples  of  Teutonic  stock, 
and  the  definite  and  riual  worsting  by  them  in  the 
struggle  for  existence,  at  nearly  every  point  of  contact 
throughout  the  world,  of  that  other  branch  of  the 

1  It  is  interesting  to  notice,  in  this  connection,  that  Mr.  Grant  Allen 
has  recently  asserted  ("  The  Celt  in  English  Art,"  Fortnightly  Review,  part  i. 
1891)  that,  while  in  our  complex  English  nationality  the  Celt's  place  in 
literature  is  unquestionable,  in  art  it  only  needs  pointing  out.  He  main- 
tains also  that  the  idealism  which  exists  iu  English  art  and  literature, 
and  even  in  English  religion  and  politics,  is  largely  a  Celtic  product 


ix        E  VOL  UTION  NO  T  PRIM  ARIL  Y  INTELLECTUAL      279 

Western   peoples  whose  intellectual  capacity  has  thus 
so  distinctly  left  its  mark  upon  the  century. 

By  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  England 
and  France  had  closed  in  what — when  all  the  issues 
dependent  on  the  struggle  are  taken  into  account — 
is  undoubtedly  one  of  the  most  stupendous  duels  that 
history  records.  Before  it  came  to  a  close  the  shock 
had  been  felt  throughout  the  civilised  world.  The  con- 
test was  waged  in  Europe,  in  India,  in  Africa,  over  the 
North  American  continent,  and  on  the  high  seas. 
Judged  by  all  those  appearances  which  impress  the 
imagination,  everything  was  in  favour  of  the  more 
brilliant  race.  In  armaments,  in  resources,  in  popula- 
tion, they  were  the  superior  people.  In  1789  the 
population  of  Great  Britain  was  only  9,600,000,*  the 
population  of  France  was  26,300,000.2  The  annual 
revenue  of  France  was  £24,000,000,"  that  of  Great 
Britain  was  only  £15,650,000.*  At  the  beginning  of 
the  nineteenth  century  the  French  people  numbered 
some  27,000,000,6  while  the  whole  English-speaking 
peoples,  including  the  Irish  and  the  population  of  the 
North  American  states  and  colonies,  did  not  exceed 
20,000,000.' 

1  Political  Geography.  Statistical  Tables  of  the  States  of  Europe,  1789. 
Lowdnes,  London. 

8  Estimated  by  E.  Levasseur.     Vide  La  Population  Franchise. 

8  Political  Geography.  Statistical  Tablet  of  the  States  of  Europe,  1789. 
Lowdnes,  London.  *  Ibid. 

6  Le  premier  dJnombrement  de  la  Population  de  la  France,  celui  de 
1801,  27,445,297.  E.  Levasseur. 

6  The  Statistical  Tables  of  Europe,  by  J.  G.  Boetticher,  dated  1800,  and 
•aid  to  be  correct  to  1799,  gives  the  figures  as  follows : — 

England  .  .  .  8,400,000 
Scotland  .  .  .  1,600,000 
Ireland  .  .  .  4,000,000. 

In  the  Report  on  10th  census  of  the  United  States,  the  population  of 
that  country  in  1800  is  estimated  at  5,308,000. 


28o  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

By  the  beginning  of  the  last  decade  of  the  nineteenth 
century  the  English  -  speaking  peoples,  not  including 
subject  peoples,  aboriginal  races,  or  the  coloured  popula- 
tion of  the  United  States,  had,  however,  expanded  to 
the  enormous  total  of  101,000,000,  while  the  French 
people  scarcely  numbered  40,000,000.  Looking  back 
it  will  be  seen  that  the  former  peoples  have  been 
successful  at  almost  every  point  throughout  the  world 
at  which  the  conflict  has  been  waged.  In  nearly  the 
whole  of  the  North  American  and  Australian  continents, 
and  in  those  parts  of  Southern  Africa  most  suitable  for 
European  races,  the  English-speaking  peoples  are  in 
possession.  No  other  peoples  have  so  firmly  and 
permanently  established  their  position.  No  limits  can 
be  set  to  the  expansion  they  are  likely  to  undergo  even 
in  the  next  century,  and  it  would  seem  almost  inevit- 
able that  they  must  in  future  exercise  a  preponderating 
influence  in  the  world. 

As  against  this  the  record  of  the  capable  French  race 
stands  out  in  strong  contrast.  One  of  the  principal 
features  of  the  last  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  has 
been  the  further  humiliation  it  has  undergone  at 
the  hands  of  another  branch  of  the  Teutonic  peoples  ; 
and  here  also  the  historian  will  probably  have  to  dis- 
tinguish that  the  result  has  been  in  no  way  accidental, 
but  due  to  causes  which  had  their  roots  deep  in  the 
general  causes  which  are  shaping  the  evolution  we  are 
undergoing.  But  remarkable  as  have  been  the  develop- 
ments of  the  past  150  years,  none  of  them  have  more 
clearly  contributed  to  the  decadence  of  the  people  who, 
at  the  beginning  of  the  century,  probably  represented  the 
highest  development  of  the  intellect  of  the  Western 
peoples,  than  a  cause  which  is  in  operation  within  their 
own  borders.  No  more  striking  history  of  racial  self- 


ix        EVOLUTION  NOT  PRIMARILY  INTELLECTUAL      281 


effacement  has  ever  been  witnessed  than  that  which 
is  revealed  by  the  French  population  statistics.  The 
rate  of  increase  of  the  French  population  has  been 
for  years  growing  less  and  less,  until  it  has  at  length 
reached  the  vanishing  point ;  and  France  stands  now, 
a  solitary  example  amongst  European  peoples,  with  a 
population  showing  an  actual  tendency  to  decrease. 
The  excess  of  births  over  deaths,  which  is  1 3  per  thousand 
in  England,  and  10  per  thousand  in  Germany,  oscillates 
in  France  between  an  excess  of  only  1  per  thousand 
and  an  actual  deficiency.  Nay  more,  the  only  section 
of  the  community  amongst  whom  the  births  show  a 
decided  tendency  to  outnumber  the  deaths  are  the 
foreigners  domiciled  in  France ;  and  it  is  only  this 
increase,  and  the  continual  influx  of  foreigners,  which 
prevent  a  considerable  decrease  of  population  year  by 
year  in  France.1 

Viewed  from  the  standpoint  from  which  the  evolu- 

1  The  following  table  shows  the  movement  of  population  in  France 
in  the  period  between  1881  and  1890.  It  is  summarised  from  a  paper 
by  V.  Turquan,  which  appeared  in  the  Economiste  Franpais,  31st 
October  1891  :— 


Excess  or 

Tear. 

Births. 

Deaths. 

Deficiency  of 

Births. 

1881 

937,057 

822,828 

+  114,229 

1882 

935,566 

838,539 

+   97,027 

1883 

937,944 

841,141 

+   96,803 

1884 

937,758 

858,784 

+  78,974 

1885 

924,558 

836,897 

+   87,661 

1886 

912,838 

860,222 

+   52,616 

1887 

899,333 

842,797 

+   56,536 

1888 

882,639 

837,967 

+   44,672 

1889 

880,579 

794,933 

+   85,646 

1890 

838,059 

876,505 

-    38,446 

The  facts  for  a  wider  period  are  given  by  P.  Leroy-Beaulieu  in  a  paper 
that  appeared  in  the  Economiste  Franfais,  20th  and  27th  September 
1890,  of  which  a  translation  will  be  found  in  Appendix  III.  p.  341. 


282  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

tion  of  the  human  race  as  a  whole  is  to  be  regarded,  the 
record  of  the  past  150  years  must  be  pronounced  to 
have  been  almost  exclusively  disastrous  to  the  French 
people.  Not  only  have  they  withdrawn  worsted  at 
almost  every  point  from  that  great  rivalry  of  races 
which  filled  the  world  in  the  eighteenth  century,  but 
their  decadence  continues  within  their  borders.  Even 
on  the  soil  of  France  they  do  not  appear  to  hold  their 
own  with  the  stranger  that  is  within  their  gates. 
M.  Lageneau  points  out  that  the  present  tendency  o± 
population  must  be  to  place  France  within  the  next 
half-century  in  a  very  disadvantageous  position  com- 
pared with  other  great  nations.  Within  a  century,  said 
the  France  recently,  there  will  be  ten  men  speaking 
English  for  every  one  speaking  French.  The  Universe 
has  expressed  the  opinion  that  within  half  a  century 
"  France  will  have  fallen  below  Italy  and  Spain  to  the 
rank  of  a  second-rate  power.  There  is  no  denying  the 
figures.  If  this  continues  in  addition  to  other  causes 
of  decadence,  we  are  a  lost  nation." 

It  will  thus  be  seen  that  we  have,  proceeding  under 
our  eyes,  and  in  our  own  time,  a  rivalry  of  races 
tending,  when  its  results  are  understood,  to  confirm  the 
general  conclusion  at  which  we  have  already  arrived. 
It  can  hardly  be  held  that  intellectual  capacity  has  been 
the  determining  factor  on  the  side  of  the  peoples  who 
have  made  most  headway  in  this  rivalry,  or  that,  in  the 
result,  natural  selection  has  exhibited  any  tendency  to 
develop  this  quality.  On  the  contrary,  we  would 
appear  to  have  evidence  of  the  same  tendency  that 
has  been  distinguished  elsewhere  in  the  history  of  social 
progress.  It  is  not  intellectual  capacity  that  natural 
selection  appears  to  be  developing  in  the  first  instance, 
but  other  qualities  contributing  more  directly  to  social 


ix        E  VOL  UTION  NO  T  PRIM  ARIL  Y  INTELLECTUAL      283 

efficiency,  and,  therefore,  of  immensely  more  importance 
and  potency  in  the  social  evolution  which  mankind  is 
undergoing.  There  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  ascend- 
ency which  the  Teutonic  peoples  have  won,  and  are  win- 
ning in  the  world,  is  mainly  due  to  the  higher  and  fuller 
development  these  last-mentioned  qualities  have  attained 
amongst  them.  There  can  also  apparently  be  as  little 
room  for  question  that  the  possession  of  even  the  highest 
intellectual  capacity  in  no  way  tends  to  compensate  for 
the  lack  of  these  qualities.  We  may  even  go  further  and 
say  that  its  possession  without  these  qualities  distinctly 
tends  to  further  lower  the  social  efficiency  of  a  people. 

The  causes  of  the  more  recent  decadence  of  the 
French  nation  are  well  known.  The  decline  in  the 
population  is  almost  entirely  due  to  voluntary  causes. 
On  the  average,  out  of  every  thousand  men  over  twenty 
years  of  age  in  the  whole  of  France,  only  609  are 
married.1  Out  of  every  thousand  families,  as  many  as 
640  have  only  two  children  or  under2  (and  200  of 
these  families  have  no  children  at  all).  The  volun- 
tary limitation  of  offspring  M.  Lageneau  attributes  to 
"the  desire  of  the  parents  to  make  ample  provision 
for  the  children  they  do  have."  P.  Leroy-Beaulieu, 
while  recognising  this  cause,  finds  it  "  associated  still 
more  with  a  lessening  of  religious  belief  on  the  part 
of  the  people,  and  a  modification  of  the  old  ideas  of 
resignation  and  submission  to  their  lot."  We  have,  in 
fact,  in  the  circumstance  only  one  of  the  simplest 
instances  of  that  enlightened  selfishness  in  the  indi- 
vidual which  must  always  lead  him  to  rank  his  own 

1  Statement  by  M.  Lageueau  at  a  meeting  of  the  Acade'mie  de» 
Sciences,  July  1890. 

8  Vide  Return  presented  to  the  Chamber  by  the  Minister  of  Finance 
summarised  in  the  Times,  23rd  June  1890.  Vide  also  La  Population 
Franfaise,  by  E.  Levasseur. 


284  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

interests,  or  those  of  his  immediate  belongings,  in  the 
actual  present  before  the  wider  and  entirely  different 
interests  of  the  longer -lived  social  organism  to  which 
he  belongs.  It  is  but  a  phase  of  that  central  problem 
underlying  our  development  in  society  which  we  have 
been  discussing  throughout.  It  is  one  of  the  commonest 
examples  of  the  disintegrating  influence  of  that  self- 
assertive  rationalism  in  the  individual,  towards  the 
control  of  which  the  forces  at  work  in  the  evolution  of 
human  society  have  been  from  the  beginning  slowly  but 
unceasingly  operating. 

If  we  now  review  the  ground  over  which  we  have 
travelled,  we  find  that  we  have  got  a  remarkable  series 
of  facts  which  must  appear  perplexing  and  inexplicable 
if  we  are  to  accept  the  view  that  the  evolution  the 
race  is  undergoing  in  society,  and  by  which  certain 
sections  of  it  acquire  ascendency  over  others,  is  mainly 
an  intellectual  evolution.  We  have  seen  that  a  people 
like  the  Greeks,  who  developed  a  civilisation  anterior 
to  our  own,  and  long  since  extinct,  are  held  by  high 
authorities  to  have  been  considerably  our  mental 
superiors.  We  have  seen  that,  despite  the  ascendency 
our  own  civilisation  is  winning  in  the  world  at  the 
present  time,  it  is  not  certain  that  intellectual  develop- 
ment is  proceeding  pari  passu  with  social  development 
therein,  and  that  it  is  even  probable  that  the  tendency 
of  our  civilisation  has  been  to  restrain  intellectual 
development.  We  have  also  seen  that  anthropologists 
are  unable  to  establish  that  clear  connection  between 
social  development  and  cranial  capacity  that  we  might 
have  expected ;  that  science  apparently  often  directs 
our  attention  to  instances  of  large  brain  capacity  in 
peoples  of  low  social  development.  We  have  seen  that 
current  conceptions  of  an  immense  intellectual  interval 


ix        E  VOL  UTION  NO  T  PRIM  ARIL  Y  INTELLECTUAL      285 

between  ourselves  and  races  of  lower  social  development 
are  greatly  exaggerated,  and  even  to  a  large  extent 
fallacious ;  that  they  are  not  borne  out  by  the  facts  as 
we  find  them ;  and  that  they  must  be  held  to  have 
originated  in  the  erroneous  tendency  to  take  as  the 
measure  of  the  mental  development  -of  individuals  be- 
longing to  the  civilised  races  that  intellectual  inherit- 
ance of  civilisation  which  has  been  accumulated  during 
a  long  series  of  generations  in  the  past,  and  which  is, 
strictly  speaking,  only  to  be  taken  as  evidence  of  the 
social  efficiency  of  the  races  which  have  accumulated  it. 

Lastly,  we  have  seen  that  in  the  rivalry  of  nation- 
alities which  is  actually  proceeding  in  our  civilisation, 
existing  facts  do  not  appear  to  point  to  the  conclusion 
that  high  intellectual  development  is  the  most  potent 
factor  in  determining  success.  We  have  seen  that 
certain  qualities,  not  in  themselves  intellectual,  but 
which  contribute  directly  to  social  efficiency,  are  appar- 
ently of  greater  importance ;  and  that  in  the  absence  of 
these  qualities  high  intellectual  development  may  even 
lower  social  efficiency  to  a  dangerous  degree,  and  so 
contribute  to  the  decided  worsting,  in  the  evolution 
which  is  proceeding,  of  the  people  possessing  it. 

When  all  these  facts  are  now  taken  together,  they 
undoubtedly  tend  to  support,  with  a  very  striking  class 
of  evidence,  a  conclusion  towards  which  we  have  been 
advancing  in  the  preceding  chapters.  It  would  appear 
that  when  man  became  a  social  creature  his  progress 
ceased  to  be  primarily  in  the  direction  of  the  development 
of  his  intellect.  Thenceforward,  in  the  conditions  under 
which  natural  selection  has  operated,  his  interests  as  an 
individual  were  no  longer  paramount ;  they  became  sub- 
ordinate to  the  distinct  and  widely-different  interests  of 
the  longer -lived  social  organism  to  which  he  for  the 


286  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

time  being  belonged.  The  intellect,  of  course,  continues 
to  be  a  most  important  factor  in  enabling  the  system  to 
which  the  individual  belongs  to  maintain  its  place  in 
the  rivalry  of  life;  but  it  is  no  longer  the  prime 
factor.  And  it  continually  tends  to  come  into  conflict 
with  those  larger  evolutionary  forces  which,  through  the 
instrumentality  of  religious  systems,  are  securing  the 
progressive  subordination  of  the  present  interests  of  the 
self  -  assertive  individual  to  the  future  interests  of 
society.  The  lesson  of  human  history  appears  to  be 
that  it  is  these  larger  forces  which  are  always  triumph- 
ant. Natural  selection  seems,  in  short,  to  be  steadily 
evolving  in  the  race  that  type .  of  character  upon 
which  these  forces  act  most  readily  and  efficiently ;  that 
is  to  say,  it  is  evolving  religious  character  in  the  first 
instance,  and  intellectual  character  only  as  a  secondary 
product  in  association  with  it.  The  race  would,  in  fact, 
appear  to  be  growing  more  and  more  religious,  the 
winning  sections  being  those  in  which,  cceteris  paribus, 
this  type  of  character  is  most  fully  developed. 

But,  like  all  movements  of  the  kind,  the  evolution  is 
proceeding  very  slowly.  One  after  another,  races  and 
civilisations  appear  to  be  used  up  in  the  process  as  it 
proceeds.  When  the  intellectual  development  of  any 
section  of  the  race  has,  for  the  time  being,  outrun  its 
ethical  development,  natural  selection  has  apparently 
weeded  it  out  like  any  other  unsuitable  product.  Ke- 
garding  our  social  systems  as  organic  growths,  there 
appears  to  be  a  close  analogy  between  their  life-history 
and  that  of  forms  of  organic  life  in  general.  We  have, 
on  the  one  side,  in  the  ethical  systems  upon  which  they 
are  founded,  the  developmental  force  which  sets  in 
motion  that  life-continuing,  constructive  process  which 
physiologists  call  anabolism.  On  the  other  side,  and  in 


ix        E  VOL  UTION  NOT  PRIM  ARIL  Y  INTELLECTUAL      287 

conflict  with  it,  we  have  in  the  self-assertive  rationalism 
of  the  individual,  the  tendency — by  itself  disintegrating 
and  destructive — known  as  katabolism.  In  a  social 
system,  as  in  any  other  organism,  the  downward  stage 
towards  decay  is  probably  commenced  when  the  katabolic 
tendency  begins  to  progressively  overbalance  the  ana- 
bolic tendency. 

A  preponderating  element  in  the  type  of  character 
which  the  evolutionary  forces  at  work  in  human  society 
are  slowly  developing,  would  appear  to  be  the  sense  of 
reverence.  The  qualities  with  which  it  is  tending  to  be 
closely  allied  are,  great  mental  energy,  resolution,  enter- 
prise, powers  of  prolonged  and  concentrated  application, 
and  a  sense  of  simple-minded  and  single-minded  devo- 
tion to  conceptions  of  duty. 


CHAPTER  X 

CONCLUDING   REMARKS 

IT  seems  likely,  when  the  application  of  the  principles 
of  evolutionary  science  to  history  comes  to  be  fully 
understood,  that  we  shall  have  to  witness  almost  as 
great  a  revolution  in  those  departments  of  knowledge 
which  deal  with  man  in  society  as  we  have  already 
seen  taking  place  in  the  entire  realm  of  the  lower 
organic  sciences  through  the  development  and  general 
application,  during  the  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  of  the  biological  theories  enunciated  by  Darwin. 
It  is  evident  that  we  are  approaching  a  period  when  we 
shall  no  longer  have  the  same  justification  as  in  the 
past  for  regarding  human  history  as  a  bewildering  ex- 
ception to  the  reign  of  universal  law — a  kind  of  solitary 
and  mysterious  island  in  the  midst  of  the  cosmos  given 
over  to  a  strife  of  forces  without  clue  or  meaning. 
Despite  the  complexity  of  the  problems  encountered  in 
history,  we  seem  to  have  everywhere  presented  to  us 
systematic  development  underlying  apparent  confusion. 
In  all  the  phases  and  incidents  of  our  social  annals  we 
are  apparently  regarding  only  the  intimately  related 
phenomena  of  a  single,  vast,  orderly  process  of  evolu- 
tion. 

If  the  explanation  of  the  principles  governing  the 


CHAP,  x  CONCLUDING  REMARKS  289 

evolution  of  society  which  has  been  given  in  the  pre- 
ceding chapters  is  in  the  main  correct,  these  principles 
must  have  an  application  far  too  wide  to  be  adequately 
discussed  within  the  limits  to  which  it  is  proposed  to 
confine  this  book.  It  has  been  no  part  of  the  aim  of 
the  writer,  in  the  task  he  has  undertaken,  to  treat  the 
subject  in  its  relations  to  that  wider  field  of  philo- 
sophical inquiry  of  which  it  forms  a  province.  It  only 
remains  now  to  deal  with  a  few  matters  directly  arising 
out  of  the  argument  so  far  as  it  has  proceeded. 

Emphasis  has  been  laid  throughout  the  preceding 
pages  on  the  necessity  for  a  clear  and  early  recognition 
of  the  inherent  and  inevitable  antagonism  existing  in 
human  society  between  the  interests  of  the  individual, 
necessarily  concerned  with  his  own  welfare,  and  the 
interests  of  the  social  organism,  largely  bound  up  with 
the  welfare  of  generations  yet  unborn.  The  funda- 
mental conception  underlying  the  reasoning  of  that 
hitherto  predominant  school  of  thought  which  has 
sought  to  establish  in  the  nature  of  things  a  rational- 
istic sanction  for  individual  conduct,  has  always  been 
that  the  interests  of  the  individual  either  already  are, 
or  are  immediately  tending  to  become,  coincident  with 
the  interests  of  society  as  a  whole.  The  principles  of 
this  Utilitarian  school  have  come  down  to  us  through 
Hobbes  and  Locke,  and  have  been  developed  by  a 
large  and  distinguished  group  of  philosophical  writers, 
amongst  the  more  influential  of  whom  must  be  counted 
Hume,  Jeremy  Bentham,  and  the  two  Mills.  They  will, 
in  the  future,  not  improbably  be  recognised  to  have 
received  their  truest  scientific  expression  in  the  Syn- 
thetic Philosophy  of  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer.  There  can 
be  no  mistaking  the  central  conception  of  this  school. 
The  idea  of  the  identification  of  the  interests  ef  the 

17 


2QO  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

individual  with  those  of  society,  as  a  whole,  has  been 
brought  into  ever-increasing  prominence.  The  key  to 
the  political  system  of  Bentham  was  expressed  in  a 
single  phrase  of  Priestley's — "  the  greatest  happiness  of 
the  greatest  number" — long  a  prominent  doctrine  in 
English  politics.  In  John  Stuart  Mill's  writings  this 
conception  of  the  identity  of  the  two  classes  of  interests 
found  constant  and  clear  expression.  He  insisted,  as  a 
means  of  making  the  nearest  approach  to  the  perfec- 
tion of  Utilitarian  morality,  that  "  utility  would  enjoin 
that  laws  and  social  arrangements  should  place  the 
happiness  or  (as  speaking  practically  it  may  be  called) 
the  interests  of  every  individual  as  nearly  as  possible 
in  harmony  with  the  interest  of  the  whole."1  Mr. 
Herbert  Spencer  has  attempted  to  develop  the  position  a 
stage  further,  and  to  establish  it  on  a  scientific  foundation. 
In  his  Data  of  Ethics  he  professes  to  see,  in  the  process 
of  social  evolution  going  on  around  us,  a  conciliation 
taking  place  "  between  the  interests  of  each  citizen  and 
the  interests  of  citizens  at  large,  tending  ever  towards  a 
state  in  which  the  two  become  merged  in  one,  and  in 
which  the  feelings  answering  to  them  respectively  fall 
into  complete  concord."8 

It  would  appear  that  we  must  reject  this  con- 
ception as  being  inconsistent  with  the  teaching  of 
evolutionary  science.  The  forces  which  are  at  work 
in  the  evolution  of  society  are  certainly,  on  the  whole, 
working  out  the  greatest  good  of  the  greatest  numler 
in  a  progressive  community.  But  the  earlier  utilitarian 
conception  of  the  greatest  number  has  always  related 
merely  to  the  majority  of  the  existing  members  of 
society  at  any  time.  The  greatest  good  which  the 

1    Utilitarianism,  by  J.  8.  Mill,  p.  25. 
*  Data  of  Ethics,  by  Herbert  Spencer,  p.  243. 


x  CONCLUDING  REMARKS  291 

evolutionary  forces,  operating  in  society,  are  working 
out,  is  the  good  of  the  social  organism  as  a  whole.  The 
greatest  number  in  this  sense  is  comprised  of  the 
members  of  generations  yet  unborn  or  unthought  of,  to 
whose  interests  the  existing  individuals  are  absolutely 
indifferent.  And,  in  the  process  of  social  evolution 
which  the  race  is  undergoing,  it  is  these  latter  interests 
which  are  always  in  the  ascendant. 

There  cannot,  it  would  appear,  be  found  in  Darwinian 
science,  as  it  is  now  understood,  any  warrant  for 
anticipating  the  arrival  of  that  state  of  society  con- 
templated by  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer.  The  author  of  the 
Synthetic  Philosophy  had  in  view  a  state  of  things  in 
which  the  antagonism  between  societies  having  entirely 
ceased  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  conciliation  between 
the  interests  of  the  individual  and  those  of  the  social 
organism  having  been  perfectly  attained  to  on  the  other, 
the  individual  also  will  have  reached  a  stage  of  develop- 
ment in  which  it  will  afford  him  the  highest  pleasure  to 
act  in  a  manner  conducive  to  the  good  of  the  social 
organism,  and  this  even  where  such  conduct  is,  to  all 
appearance,  directly  antagonistic  to  his  own  material 
interests — just  as  at  present  the  highest  happiness  is 
often  obtained  in  parental  sacrifice.  This  altruistic 
instinct  may,  in  fact,  according  to  Mr.  Spencer,  "  be 
expected  to  attain  a  level  at  which  it  will  be  like  parental 
altruism  in  spontaneity,"  and  so  lead  the  individual 
to  obtain  the  highest  of  all  satisfactions  in  volun- 
tarily sacrificing  himself  in  the  interests  of  the  social 
organism.1 

By  this  conception  of  an  ideal  social  state,  Mr. 
Herbert  Spencer  must  mean  one  of  two  things.  Let  us 
take  each  separately.  If  he  imagined,  as  the  older  utili- 

1  Vide  Data  of  Ethics,  chap.  xiv. 


292  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

tarians  apparently  did  imagine,  a  conciliation  of  the 
interests  of  the  individual  and  those  of  society  taking 
place  with  human  nature  exactly  as  it  is,  but  under  a 
different  organisation  of  society  to  that  now  prevailing, 
then  he  is  at  one  with  certain  socialist  reformers  of 
the  time.  Nothing  more  is  necessary  to  bring  about 
such  a  state  of  society  than  to  draw  a  ring  fence 
round  our  borders,  to  suspend  the  competitive  forces, 
to  organise  society  on  a  socialist  basis,  and  in  future 
to  regulate  the  population  strictly  according  to  the 
conditions  of  existence  for  the  time  being.  Conduct 
contributing  to  the  present  welfare  of  society  in  such 
a  community  would  be  but  that  dictated  by  "  en- 
lightened self-interest"  in  the  individuals;  and  the 
conciliation  of  interests  would  be,  as  far  as  possible, 
complete.  "We  have  already  dealt  with  the  difficulties 
in  the  way  of  such  a  society  in  the  chapter  on  socialism. 
But  the  evolutionist  who  has  perceived  the  application 
of  that  development  which  the  Darwinian  law  of 
Natural  Selection  has  undergone  in  the  hands  of  Weis- 
mann,  is  precluded  at  the  outset  from  contemplating  the 
continued  success  of  such  a  society.  The  evolutionist 
who  has  once  realised  the  significance  of  the  supreme 
fact  up  to  which  biology  has  slowly  advanced, — namely, 
that  every  quality  of  life  can  be  kept  in  a  state  of 
efficiency  and  prevented  from  retrograding  only  by  the 
continued  and  never-relaxed  stress  of  selection — simply 
finds  it  impossible  to  conceive  a  society  permanently 
existing  in  this  state.  He  can  only  think  of  it  existing 
at  all  on  one  condition — in  the  first  stage  of  a  period  of 
progressive  degeneration. 

But  it  may  be  replied  on  behalf  of  Mr.  Herbert 
Spencer  that  he  has  advanced  beyond  this  position, 
that  such  an  argument,  however  applicable  to  the  views 


x  CONCLUDING  REMARKS  293 

of  some  of  the  older  utilitarians,  and  to  some  of  the  pre- 
vailing socialist  theories  of  society,  does  not  reach  his 
position.  For  he  does,  it  may  be  said,  contemplate  the 
necessary  sacrifice  of  the  interests  of  the  individual  to 
those  of  the  social  organism  which  the  conditions  of 
evolution  require.  Only  the  individual  will  be  so  con- 
stituted that  this  sacrifice  will  be  made  spontaneously. 
He  will  obtain  the  highest  satisfaction  and  happiness  in 
making  it.  His  character  will,  in  fact,  have  undergone 
so  profound  a  modification  that  this  social  altruism 
"  may  be  expected  to  attain  a  level  at  which  it  will  be 
like  parental  altruism  in  spontaneity."  Let  us  deal 
with  this  modified  view. 

The  deficiency  in  Mr.  Spencer's  reasoning  here  is  the 
same  deficiency  which  to  a  large  extent  pervades  the 
whole  of  his  synthetic  philosophy  in  its  application  to 
our  social  phenomena.  He  has  never  realised  the 
nature  of  the  essential  difference  which  distinguishes 
human  evolution  from  all  other  evolution  whatsoever : 
namely,  the  existence  therein  of  the  factor  of  individual 
reason.  He  has,  therefore,  not  perceived  that  while 
our  evolution  is  in  the  first  place  pre-eminently  a  social 
evolution,  the  most  profoundly  individualistic,  anti- 
social, and  anti-evolutionary  of  all  human  qualities  is 
one  which,  other  things  being  equal,  tends  to  be  pro- 
gressively developed  in  the  race,  namely,  reason.  He 
has,  accordingly,  never  realised  that  the  central  feature 
of  our  evolution  has  always  been  the  supreme  struggle 
in  which  the  control  of  this  disintegrating  influence  is 
being  continually  effected  in  the  interest  of  society  first, 
and  of  the  race  in  the  next  place ;  and  that  the  function 
of  that  immense  and  characteristic  class  of  social  pheno- 
mena which  we  have  in  our  religious  systems,  is  to 
secure  this  necessary  subordination  of  the  present 


294  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

interests  of  the  self-assertive  individual  to  the  general 
interests  of  the  process  of  evolution  which  is  in  progress. 
To  expect  the  subordination — in  the  manner  contem- 
plated by  Mr.  Spencer — of  that  feeling  in  the  individual 
which  prompts  him  to  consider  his  own  interests  first  to  a 
feeling  leading  him  to  sacrifice  these  interests  to  further 
a  process  of  evolution  with  which  he  has  no  concern,  is 
to  ignore  facts  and  conditions  around  us,  the  meaning  of 
which  is  unmistakable. 

For  it  would  be  impossible  to  conceive  any  altru- 
istic feeling  of  this  kind  which  could  exceed  in 
strength  the  parental  instinct.  Yet  one  of  the  plainest 
facts  of  our  time  and  of  past  history  is  the  perversion 
of  this  instinct  under  the  influence  of  rationalism, 
and  the  suspension  of  its  operation  in  furthering  the 
evolution  the  race  is  undergoing.  We  have  discussions 
proceeding  in  the  literature  of  the  time  in  which  ration- 
alism points  out  with  reiterated  emphasis  that  "  there 
is  something  pathetically  absurd  in  this  sacrifice  to  their 
children  of  generation  after  generation  of  grown 
people."1  No  observant  person  who  has  watched  the 
signs  of  the  times  can  have  the  least  doubt  that  in  a 
state  of  unrestricted  rationalism  the  institution  of 
marriage  and  the  family  would  undergo  modifications 
incompatible  with  the  continuance  of  that  process  of 
evolution  with  which  the  interests  of  the  race  are  bound 
up.  We  have  unmistakable  evidence  of  the  perversion  of 
the  parental  feelings  amongst  the  Greeks  and  Romans 
and  other  peoples  under  rationalistic  influences.8  And 

1  Mrs.  Mona  Caird,  Nineteenth  Century,  May  1892. 

8  Speaking  of  the  decay  of  the  Athenian  people,  Mr.  Francis  Gallon 
says,  "We  know,  and  may  guess  something  more,  of  the  reason  why 
this  marvellously-gifted  race  declined.  Social  morality  grew  exceedingly 
lax  ;  marriage  became  unfashionable  and  was  avoided  ;  many  of  the 
more  ambitious  and  accomplished  women  were  avowed  courtesans,  and 


x  CONCLUDING  REMARKS  295 

we  have  at  the  present  day  that  striking  example 
referred  to  in  the  last  chapter,  of  the  perversion  under 
similar  circumstances  of  these  feelings  amongst  the  most 
brilliant  and  able  race  amongst  the  European  peoples, 
and  the  consequent  failure  of  that  race  to  maintain  its 
place  amongst  others  in  the  evolution  which  is  proceed- 
ing under  our  eyes  in  the  civilisation  in  which  we  are 
living. 

Yet  these  parental  instincts  which  give  way  thus 
before  rationalism  have  an  accumulated  strength  behind 
them  dating  back  to  the  beginning  of  life,  developed,  as 
they  have  been,  through  all  those  countless  aeons  of 
time  through  which  we  rise  from  the  lowest  organisms 
upwards  to  man.  To  anticipate,  as  Mr.  Herbert 
Spencer  has  done,  the  development,  during  the  infini- 
tesimal length  of  any  period  of  human  evolution,  of  a 
feeling  or  instinct  of  a  similar  kind,  but  of  sufficient 
strength  to  do  what  the  parental  feelings  already  fail 
to  do,  is  to  altogether  misunderstand  the  nature  of  the 
characteristic  problem  human  evolution  presents,  and 
consequently  to  misinterpret  some  of  the  plainest 
facts  of  the  times  in  which  we  are  living,  and  of  the 
history  of  the  race  in  the  past. 

It  would  appear  that  the  teaching  of  evolution- 
ary science  as  applied  to  society  is  that  there  is  only 
one  way  in  which  the  rationalistic  factor  in  human 
evolution  can  be  controlled ;  namely,  through  the 
instrumentality  of  religious  systems.  These  systems 
constitute  the  absolutely  characteristic  feature  of  our 

consequently  infertile,  and  the  mothers  of  the  incoming  population  were 
of  a  heterogeneous  class  "  (Hereditary  Genius,  p.  331).  The  same  state  of 
popular  feeling  with  respect  to  marriage  prevailed  during  the  decline  of 
the  Roman  Empire.  The  courtesans  were  raised,  says  Mr.  Lecky,  "  in 
popular  estimation  to  an  unexampled  elevation"  and  "aversion  to 
marriage  became  very  general." 


296  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

evolution,  the  necessary  and  inevitable  complement  of 
our  reason.  It  is  under  the  influence  of  these  systems 
that  the  evolution  of  the  race  is  proceeding ;  it  is  in  con- 
nection with  these  systems  that  we  must  study  the  laws 
which  regulate  the  character,  growth,  and  decay  of 
societies  and  civilisations.  It  is  along  the  ever-advancing 
or  retreating  frontiers  where  they  encounter  each  other 
that  we  have  some  of  the  most  striking  effects  that 
natural  selection  is  producing  on  the  race.  It  is 
within  their  borders  that  we  witness  the  process  by 
which  the  eternal  forces  that  are  working  out  the 
destiny  of  the  race  are  continually  effecting  the 
subordination  of  the  interests  of  successive  generations 
of  men  to  those  larger  interests  to  which  the  individual 
is  indifferent,  and  of  which  he  has  only  very  feeble 
power  to  realise  either  the  nature  or  the  magnitude. 

We  have  seen  in  the  previous  chapters  that  the  pro- 
cess of  evolution  enfolding  itself  in  our  civilisation  has 
consisted  essentially  in  the  slow  disintegration  of  that 
military  type  of  society  which  attained  its  highest 
development  in  a  social  stage  in  which  the  greater  part 
of  the  people  were  excluded  from  participating  in  the 
rivalry  of  existence  on  terms  of  equality,  and  in  which 
their  lives  were  continuously  exploited  for  the  exclusive 
benefit  of  a  comparatively  small  privileged  and  power- 
holding  class.  The  history  of  the  modern  world  we 
have  observed  to  be  simply  the  history  of  the  process  of 
development  that,  having  undermined  the  position  of 
these  power-holding  classes,  emancipated  the  individual, 
and  enfranchised  the  people,  is  now  tending  to  bring, 
for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the  race,  all  the 
members  of  the  community  into  the  rivalry  of  life  on 
a  footing  of  equality  of  opportunity.  This  is  the  move- 
ment which  has  raised  our  Western  civilisation  to  the 


x  CONCLUDING  REMARKS  297 

place  it  now  occupies  in  the  world,  and  all  the  social 
and  political  movements  in  progress  in  every  country 
where  it  prevails  are  but  aspects  of  it. 

Now  while  the  import  in  this  process  of  develop- 
ment of  the  movement  known  as  the  Reformation  has 
been  already  referred  to,  the  exact  manner  in  which  this 
movement  has  influenced  and  is  still  influencing  our 
social  and  political  development  is  seldom  clearly 
perceived.  That  the  effects  on  national  character  of 
the  religious  movement  of  the  sixteenth  century  have 
been  important  is  already  fully  recognised  by  students 
of  social  phenomena.  Thus  we  find  Professor  Marshall, 
in  his  Principles  of  Economics,  recently  laying  stress 
on  the  economic  significance  of  the  change  which  it  pro- 
duced in  the  English  character.  Its  doctrines,  he  says, 
deepened  the  character  of  the  people,  "  reacted  on  their 
habits  of  life,  and  gave  a  tone  to  their  indu  try."  Family 
life  was  intensified,  so  much  so,  that  "  the  family  relations 
of  those  races  which  have  adopted  the  reformed  religion 
are  the  richest  and  fullest  of  earthly  feeling;  there 
never  has  been  before  any  material  of  texture  at  once 
so  strong  and  so  fine  with  which  to  build  up  a  noble 
fabric  of  social  life." * 

The  character  of  the  people  had,  in  fact,  not  only 
been  deepened  and  strengthened,  it  had  been  softened 
to  an  extent  hitherto  unknown.  It  is  probable  that  the 
changes  in  doctrine  which  had  principally  contributed 
to  produce  this  result  were  those  which  had  tended  to 
bring  the  individual  into  more  intimate  contact  with 
the  actual  life  and  example  of  the  Founder  of  Chris- 
tianity, and  therefore  with  the  essential  spirit  that 
underlay  our  religious  system  and  served  to  dis- 
tinguish it  from  all  other  systems.  As  has  been  fre- 

1  Vide  Principles  of  Economics,  vol.  i.  pp.  34,  35. 


298  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

quently  correctly  pointed  out,  the  characteristic  feature 
of  Latin  Christianity  was  different.  This  form  has 
always  tended,  as  it  still  tends,  to  treat  as  of  the  first 
importance,  not  the  resulting  change  in  character  in  the 
individual,  but  rather  his  belief  in  the  authority  of  the 
Church  and  of  an  order  of  men,  and  in  the  supreme 
efficacy  of  sacramental  ordinances  which  the  Church 
has  decreed  itself  alone  competent  to  dispense.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  central  idea  of  the  Keformation 
was  the  necessity  for  a  spiritual  change  in  the 
individual,  and  the  recognition,  in  virtue  thereof, 
of  the  priesthood  in  his  own  person.  As  Pro- 
fessor Marshall  states,  "Man  was,  as  it  were,  ushered 
straight  into  the  presence  of  his  Creator  with  no  human 
intermediary ;  life  became  intense  and  full  of  awe,  and 
now  for  the  first  time  large  numbers  of  rude  and  un- 
cultured people  yearned  towards  the  mysteries  of  absolute 
spiritual  freedom.  The  isolation  of  each  person's  re- 
ligious responsibility  from  that  of  his  fellows  rightly 
understood  was  a  necessary  condition  for  the  highest 
spiritual  progress." l  Thus,  on  the  one  hand,  individual 
character  tended  to  be  greatly  strengthened  by  the  isola- 
tion of  individual  responsibility,  and  on  the  other,  to  be 
deepened  and  softened  by  being  brought  into  close  and 
intimate  contact  with  those  wonderfully  moving  and 
impressive  altruistic  ideals  which  we  have  in  the  simple 
story  of  the  life  and  acts  of  the  Founder  of  Christianity. 
The  resulting  difference  in  character,  which  may 
mean  much  or  little  in  theological  controversy  accord- 
ing to  the  standpoint  of  the  observer,  assumes,  how- 
ever, profound  importance  in  the  eyes  of  the  student  of 
our  social  evolution.  The  fact  must  be  kept  in  view, 
which  has  been  throughout  insisted  on,  that  it  is  this 

1  Principles  of  Economics,  vol.  i.  p.  34. 


x  CONCLUDING  REMARKS  299 

softening  and  deepening  of  character,  with  the  accom- 
panying release  into  our  social  life  of  an  immense  and 
all-pervading  fund  of  altruistic  feeling,  which  has  provided 
the  real  motive  force  behind  the  whole  onward  movement 
with  which  our  age  is  identified.  It  may  be  noticed, 
consequently,  how  much  farther  the  development  of  the 
humanitarian  feelings  has  progressed  in  those  parts  of 
our  civilisation  most  affected  by  the  movement  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  and  more  particularly  amongst  the 
Anglo-Saxon  peoples.  That  great  wave  of  altruistic 
feeling  which  caused  the  crusade  against  slavery  to 
attain  such  remarkable  development  amongst  these 
peoples  has  progressed  onward,  carrying  on  its  crest  the 
multitude  of  philanthropic  and  humanitarian  under- 
takings which  are  so  characteristic  a  feature  of  all 
English-speaking  communities,  and  such  little-understood 
movements  as  anti-vivisection,  vegetarianism,  the  en- 
franchisement of  women,  the  prevention  of  cruelty  to 
animals,  and  the  abolition  of  state  regulation  of  vice.  It 
is  in  these  that  we  have  the  outward  appearances  which 
mark  the  nature  of  the  larger  impetus  which,  amongst 
these  peoples,  is  behind  that  social  and  political  move- 
ment which  has  gradually  enfranchised  and  uplifted  the 
people,  and  which  is  now  steadily  tending  to  bring  them 
all  into  the  rivalry  of  life  on  conditions  of  equality. 

Now,  Mr.  Lecky  has  recently  said  that  there  is 
probably  no  better  test  of  the  political  genius  of  a 
nation  than  the  power  it  possesses  of  adapting  old 
institutions  to  new  wants,  and  he  finds  the  English 
people  pre-eminent  in  this  characteristic.1  There  can  be 
little  doubt,  however,  that  the  quality  here  called  political 
genius,  which  is  undoubtedly,  on  the  whole,  characteristic 
of  the  Anglo-Saxon  peoples,  has  its  roots,  in  this  instance, 

1  The  Political  Value  of  History,  1892. 


300  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

in  causes  intimately  and  directly  associated  with  the 
exceptional  development  which  the  altruistic  feelings 
have  attained  amongst  these  peoples  as  the  result  of  the 
causes  mentioned.  We  have,  therein,  one  of  the  clearest 
examples  of  how  profoundly  the  social  development  of 
particular  peoples  has  been  influenced  by  the  course 
which  the  ethical  movement  on  which  our  civilisation  is 
founded  has  taken  amongst  them. 

In  England,  where  the  religious  movement  of  the  six- 
teenth century  proceeded  with  little  interruption,  it  has 
been  noticed  that  the  most  significant  feature  of  the  pro- 
cess of  social  development  in  which  the  power-holding 
classes  are  in  full  conscious  retreat  before  the  incoming 
people  is,  that  these  classes  are  themselves  deeply 
affected  by  the  softening  influences  of  the  time.  All 
classes  of  society  have  become  sensitive  in  a  high 
degree  to  the  sight  of  suffering  or  wrong  of  any  kind. 
The  effect  on  the  power -holding  classes  is  to  take 
away  their  faith  in  their  own  cause.  With  all  the 
enormous  latent  strength  of  their  position  these  classes 
do  not  make,  and  either  consciously  or  unconsciously 
realise  that  they  cannot  make,  any  effective  resistance 
to  the  onward  movement  which  is  gradually  uplifting 
the  people  at  their  expense.  The  best  of  them  are,  in 
fact,  either  openly  or  in  their  hearts  on  the  side  of  the 
people,  and  the  only  fighting  policy  of  the  party  is 
consequently  one  of  temporising  defence. 

The  practical  consequence  is. of  great  significance. 
It  is  that  the  development  in  which  the  excluded 
masses  of  the  people  are  being  brought  into  the  com- 
petition of  life  on  a  footing  of  equality  of  opportunity 
is  proceeding,  and  will  apparently  continue  to  proceed  in 
Great  Britain,  not  by  the  violent  stages  of  revolution,  but 
as  a  gradual  and  orderly  process  of  social  change.  The 


x  CONCLUDING  REMARKS  301 

power-holding  classes  are  in  retreat  before  the  people; 
but  the  retreat  on  the  one  side  is  orderly  and  unbroken, 
while  the  advance  on  the  other  is  the  steady,  unhasten- 
ing,  onward  movement  of  a  party  conscious  of  the 
strength  and  rectitude  of  its  cause,  and  in  no  doubt  as 
to  the  final  issue.  There  is,  consequently,  no  deep- 
seated  bitterness  on  either  side.  Both  opponents,  still 
respecting  each  other,  recognise  as  it  were  the  ultimate 
issue  of  the  battle.  The  great  process  is  proceeding 
as  a  natural  and  orderly  development — we  are  adapt- 
ing the  old  institutions  to  the  new  wants.  This  is 
the  real  secret  of  that  political  genius  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  peoples  are  now  displaying,  and  there  is 
scarcely  any  other  quality  which  promises  to  stand  them 
in  such  good  stead  in  that  great  social  revolution 
with  which  the  history  of  the  twentieth  century  will  be 
filled. 

But  when  we  turn  to  those  peoples  amongst  whom 
the  religious  movement  of  the  sixteenth  century  was 
interrupted  or  suppressed,  and  amongst  whom  the  Latin 
form  of  Christianity  prevails,  we  find  that  the  situation 
is  not  exactly  the  same.  Amongst  these  people  the  idea 
of  the  innate  equality  of  all  men,  with  the  consequent 
conception  of  the  fundamental  right  of  all  to  equal 
opportunities  which  is  the  peculiar  product  of  the 
ethical  system  on  which  our  civilisation  is  founded, 
has  practically  reached  the  same  development  as  else- 
where. But  the  profound  change  in  social  character 
which  has  accompanied  this  development,  amongst  the 
Anglo-Saxon  peoples  for  instance,  has  not  proceeded  so 
far.  The  deepening  of  individual  character,  resulting 
in  a  certain  inbred  sense  of  integrity  which  has  rendered 
the  sense  of  wrong  intolerable,  and  the  softening  process 
which  has  made  the  Anglo-Saxon  peoples  so  sensitive  to 


3<»  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

the  sight  of  misery  or  suffering,  have  not  progressed  to 
the  same  extent. 

In  practice  this  is  a  difference  of  great  importance. 
The  two  great  opposing  parties  in  the  process  of  social 
development  that  is  proceeding, — namely,  the  Power- 
holding  classes  and  the  People,  the  Haves  and  the  Have- 
nots, — confront  each  other  in  a  different  spirit.  The 
struggle,  amongst  the  peoples  who  have  not  been  so 
deeply  affected  by  the  humanitarian  movement,  tends 
to  become  more  a  selfish  trial  of  strength  in  which  each 
party  is  determinedly  and  bitterly  fighting  for  its 
own  material  interests,  and  in  which  the  issue  swings, 
according  to  the  relative  strength  of  the  opponents, 
between  successful  resistance  on  the  one  hand  and 
successful  revolution  on  the  other.  Either  result  is 
almost  equally  dangerous.  With  successful  resistance 
on  the  part  of  the  power -holding  classes  we  have 
stagnation  and  interrupted  development ;  with  successful 
revolution  on  the  part  of  the  people  we  have  irregular 
and  uncertain  progress.  We  have  examples  of  either 
one  or  the  other  of  these  results  amongst  the  European 
nations  that  have  not  been  affected  by  the  religious 
development  of  the  sixteenth  century.  The  victory 
naturally  tends  to  be  with  the  people ;  but  the  cost  of 
successful  revolution  in  such  conditions  is  great.  For, 
as  has  been  recently  pointed  out  with  truth  and  insight, 
"  few  greater  calamities  can  befall  a  nation  than  to  cut 
herself  off,  as  France  (in  these  circumstances)  has  done  in 
her  great  revolution,  from  all  vital  connection  with  her 
own  past." l  As  our  civilisation,  as  a  whole,  must  be 
regarded  as  the  unfolding  of  a  process  of  life,  so — as  will 
not  improbably  be  recognised  with  growing  clearness 
in  the  future — those  sections  of  it  which  have  remained 

1  W.  E.  H.  Lecky,  The  Political  Value  of  History. 


x  CONCLUDING  REMARKS  303 

unaffected  by  the  great  natural  development  which  the 
ethical  system  upon  which  it  is  founded  underwent  in 
the  sixteenth  century — wherein,  beyond  doubt,  a  pro- 
found social  instinct  found  expression — will  lack  certain 
well-marked  characteristics,  possessing  a  high  value  in 
the  process  of  social  evolution  which  is  still  proceeding. 
It  is  to  be  doubted  whether  the  peoples  who,  in  suppress- 
ing the  religious  development  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
succeeded  in  preserving  the  outward  forms  of  ecclesiasti- 
cal unity,  will  be  so  successful  in  ultimately  preserving 
the  essential  spirit  of  Christianity  as  those  amongst 
whom  the  development  was  allowed  to  pursue  its 
natural  course.  Amongst  the  former  peoples  the 
subsequent  movements  of  opinion  have  unmistakably 
been  direct  to  rationalism.  It  is  apparently  amongst 
the  latter  peoples  that  the  social  transformation,  which 
our  civilisation  is  destined  to  accomplish,  will  reach 
its  most  successful  expression  and  proceed  thereto  by 
the  most  regular  and  orderly  stages. 

In  any  forecast  of  the  future  of  our  civilisation,  one 
of  the  most  important  of  the  questions  presenting  them- 
selves for  consideration,  is  that  of  the  future  relationship 
of  the  European  peoples  to  what  are  called  the  lower 
races.  Probably  one  of  the  most  remarkable  features 
of  the  world-wide  expansion  the  European  peoples  are 
undergoing  will  be  the  change  that  this  relationship  is 
destined  to  undergo  in  the  near  future.  In  estimates/ 
which  have  been  hitherto  made  of  our  coming  relations } 
to  the  coloured  races,  a  factor  which  will  in  all  probability' 
completely  dominate  the  situation  in  the  future  has 
received  scarcely  any  attention. 

The  relationships  of  the  Western  peoples  to  the 
inferior  races,  with  which  they  have  come  into  contact 
in  the  course  of  the  expansion  they  have  undergone,  is 


304  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

one  of  the  most  interesting  subjects  in  history.  Confused 
though  these  relationships  may  appear,  it  may  be 
distinguished  that  they  have  passed  through  certain 
well-marked  stages  of  development.  We  must  set  aside, 
as  being  outside  our  present  field  of  vision,  those  races 
which  have  inhabited  countries  suitable  for  European 
colonisation.  The  fate  of  all  races  occupying  territories 
of  this  kind  has  been  identical.  Whether  wars  of 
extermination  have  been  waged  against  them,  or  whether 
they  have  been  well  treated  and  admitted  to  citizenship, 
they  have  always  tended  to  disappear  before  the  more 
vigorous  incoming  race.  It  is  with  the  inhabitants  of 
regions  unsuitable  for  European  settlement,  and  mostly 
outside  the  temperate  zone,  that  we  are  concerned. 

The  alteration  observable  in  our  relations  to 
these  races  since  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
centuries  has  been  very  gradual,  but  its  general 
character  is  unmistakable.  During  the  sixteenth, 
seventeenth,  and  eighteenth  centuries,  a  great  part  of 
the  richest  regions  in  the  tropical  countries  of  the 
earth  passed  under  the  dominion  of  the  four  great  sea 
powers  of  Western  Europe — Spain,  Holland,  France, 
and  England  have  successively  engaged  in  the  keenest 

J 

rivalry  for  the  possession  of  vast  regions  of  this  kind, 
unsuitable  for  permanent  colonisation,  but  possessing 
rich  natural  resources.  The  general  idea  which  lay 
behind  this  extension  of  dominion  was  in  the  main  that 
of  military  conquest.  The  territories  of  the  weaker 
peoples  were  invaded,  taken  possession  of,  and  exploited 
for  the  benefit  of  the  more  vigorous  invader.  The 
interests  of  the  original  occupiers  were  little,  if  at  all, 
regarded.  The  main  end  in  view  was  the  immediate 
profit  and  advantage  of  the  conquerors.  In  the  West 
India  Islands  the  native  population  was  worked  in  the 


x  CONCLUDING  REMARKS  305 

mines  and  the  plantations  until  it  became  in  great  part 
extinct,  and  the  Spaniards  began  to  introduce  negroes 
from  Africa.  Operations  were  conducted  on  so  great  a 
scale  that  in  the  20  years  before  the  opening  of  the 
eighteenth  century  300,000  slaves  were  exported  fiom 
Africa  by  the  English,  and  in  the  80  years  which  followed, 
over  600,000  slaves  were  landed  in  the  Island  of  Jamaica 
alone.  Slave  labour  was  employed  to  an  enormous  extent 
in  most  of  the  countries  of  which  possession  was  ob- 
tained. The  natural  resources  of  the  territories  occupied 
were,  however,  developed  to  a  considerable  degree.  The 
enormous  wealth  which  Spain  drew  from  her  conquests 
and  undertakings  in  tropical  America  was  long  a  very 
powerful  factor  in  the  wars  and  politics  of  Europe : 
Holland,  France,  and  England  also  enriched  themselves 
both  directly  and  indirectly.  In  the  Spanish,  Dutch, 
and  English  settlements  and  plantations  in  the  Eastern 
Hemisphere,  and  in  those  in  the  West  Indies  and  South 
America,  under  Spanish,  Dutch,  French,  and  English 
rule,  great  enterprises  in  trade,  agriculture,  and  mining 
were  successfully  undertaken.  Order  and  government 
were  introduced,  and  large  cities  sprung  up  rivalling 
European  cities  in  size  and  magnificence.  This  first 
period  was  one  of  feverish  activity,  and  of  universal 
desire  on  the  part  of  the  invaders  to  quickly  enrich 
themselves.  There  was  much  cruelty  to  weaker  races, 
and  although  all  the  powers  were  not  equally  guilty  in 
this  respect,  none,  at  least,  were  innocent.  But  looking 
at  the  period  as  a  whole,  and  regarding  the  enterprises 
undertaken  in  their  true  light — namely,  as  an  attempt 
to  develop,  by  forced  ^coloured  labour  under  European 
supervision,  the  resources  of  countries  not  suitable  for 
European  settlement — a  certain  degree  of  success  must 
be  admitted  to  have  been  attained,  and  the  enterprises 

x 


306  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

undoubtedly  contributed  to  increase,  for  the  time  being, 
the  material  wealth  and  resources  of  the  powers  con- 
cerned. 

Towards  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  the 
tendency  of  the  change  that  was  taking  place  began 
to  be  visible.  It  had  become  clear  that  the  European 
peoples  could  not  hope  to  settle  permanently  in  the 
tropical  lands  they  had  occupied,  and  that,  if  the 
resources  were  to  be  developed,  it  must  be  by  native 
labour  under  their  supervision.  Already,  however, 
the  effects  of  the  altruistic  development  which  had  been 
so  long  in  progress  were  becoming  generally  evident, 
and  before  the  opening  of  the  nineteenth  century  men 
had  glimpses  of  the  nature  of  the  social  revolution 
it  was  eventually  to  accomplish  in  our  civilisation. 
The  institution  of  slavery  in  tropical  lands  under 
European  auspices  was  clearly  doomed.  So  also,  to  the 
more  far-reaching  minds,  seemed  another  institution 
upon  which  depended,  to  all  appearance,  the  continued 
maintenance  of  European  enterprise  and  European 
authority  in  lands  not  suitable  for  the  permanent  settle- 
ment of  the  "Western  races. 

The  right  of  occupation  and  government  in  virtue 
of  conquest  or  force  tended,  it  was  felt,  to  become  an 
anachronism;  it  was  antagonistic  to,  and  it  involved  a 
denial  of,  the  spirit  which  constituted  the  mainspring 
of  that  onward  movement  which  was  taking  place  in 
our  civilisation,  and  which  was  slowly  bringing  the 
people  into  the  rivalry  of  life  on  conditions  of  equality. 
Although  almost  every  European  people,  that  had 
attained  to  any  consciousness  of  national  strength, 
had  in  the  past  endeavoured  to  imitate  the  military 
ideals  of  the  ancient  empires,  and  to  extend  their 
rule  by  conquest  over  other  peoples  of  equal  civilisa- 


x  CONCLUDING  REMARKS  307 

tion,  they  had  done  so  with  ever-diminishing  success. 
The  growth  of  influences  and  conditions  tending  to 
render  the  realisation  of  such  aims  more  and  more 
difficult  was  unmistakable.  Any  nation  which  would 
embark  upon  such  an  enterprise,  on  a  great  scale  and 
against  a  European  people,  would,  it  was  felt,  find  in  the 
near  future,  forces  arrayed  against  it  of  which  the  ancient 
world  had  no  experience,  and  which  no  military  skill, 
however  great,  and  no  national  strength  and  resolution, 
however  concentrated  and  prolonged,  could  entirely 
subdue.  To  keep  in  subjection,  therefore,  by  purely 
military  force  a  people  of  even  greatly  lower  develop- 
ment must,  it  was  felt,  become  correspondingly  difficult ; 
and  this,  not  so  much  because  of  the  fear  of  effective 
resistance  in  a  military  sense,  but  because  of  the  lack  of 
moral  force  on  the  part  of  the  stronger  peoples  to  initiate 
an  effort  involving  a  principle  antagonistic  to  the  spirit 
governing  the  development  which  these  peoples  were 
themselves  undergoing. 

Throughout  the  early  and  middle  decades  of  the 
nineteenth  century  we  have,  therefore,  to  watch  the 
development  of  this  spirit  and  the  effects  it  produced. 
Before  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  agitation 
against  the  slave-trade  in  the  colonies  had  assumed  large 
proportions.  In  England  a  motion  was  carried  in  the 
House  of  Commons  in  1792,  providing  for  the  gradual 
abolition  of  the  traffic.  In  1794  the  French  Convention 
decreed  that  all  slaves  throughout  the  French  colonies 
should  be  admitted  to  the  rights  of  French  citizens; 
and,  although  slavery  did  not  cease  in  the  French 
dominions  for  some  fifty  years  after,  the  Convention  in 
this  as  in  other  matters  only  anticipated  the  future. 
The  agitation  in  England  against  the  slave-trade  having 
been  largely  successful,  the  feeling  against  the  employ- 


3o8  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

ment  of  slaves  continued  to  grow  in  strength  until  an 
Act  was  at  length  obtained  in  1834,  finally  abolishing 
slavery  in  the  British  settlements,  the  slave-owners  being 
awarded  £20,000,000  as  indemnification.  The  negroes 
in  the  French  settlements  were  emancipated  in  1848, 
those  in  the  Dutch  colonies  in  1863 ;  while  the  slaves 
in  the  Southern  states  of  the  American  Union  obtained 
their  freedom  as  the  result  of  the  Civil  War  of 
1862-65. 

Meanwhile  the  growth  of  the  other  influence  tend- 
ing to  undermine  the  position  of  the  European  races  in 
the  tropical  countries  they  had  occupied  had  continued. 
By  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  coloured  races 
of  Hayti,  under  the  influence  of  the  ideas  of  the  French 
Revolution,  had  thrown  off  the  rule  of  France.  Before 
the  first  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century  had  passed 
away  the  Spanish  territories  of  Central  and  South 
America — often  still  spoken  of  as  if  they  were  inhabited 
by  Europeans,  although  in  most  of  which,  it  must  be 
remembered,  the  vast  bulk  of  the  population  consists  of 
native  Indians,  imported  negroes,  and  mixed  races — 
had,  one  after  another,  declared  their  independence  of 
European  rule.  It  came  to  be  looked  upon  as  only  natural 
and  inevitable  that  it  should  be  so ;  and  it  was  held  to  be 
only  a  question  of  time  for  the  Dutch  possessions  and 
the  remaining  Spanish  settlements  to  follow  suit.  The 
English  settlements  in  the  West  Indies,  it  was  supposed, 
would  become  independent  too.  They  came  to  be  re- 
garded as  being  as  good  as  gone.  We  have  Mr.  Froude's 
word  for  it  that  he  had  it  on  high  official  authority,  about 
1860,  that  all  preparations  for  the  transition  had  been 
already  made.  "  A  decision  had  been  irrevocably  taken. 
The  troops  were  to  be  withdrawn  from  the  Islands,  and 
Jamaica,  Trinidad,  and  the  English  Antilles  were  to  be 


x  CONCLUDING  REMARKS  309 

masters  of  their  own  destiny."1  The  withdrawal  did 
not  take  place,  but  the  general  feeling  in  the  minds  of 
politicians  in  England  at  the  time  was  undoubtedly  such 
as  might  have  prompted  such  a  decision. 

If  we  turn  now  to  the  condition  of  affairs  ac- 
companying these  events  in  the  countries  in  question, 
we  have  presented  to  us  what  is  probably  one  of 
the  most  extraordinary  spectacles  the  world  has  be- 
held. The  enterprise  that  once  attempted  to  develop 
the  resources  of  the  countries  concerned,  has  been  to  a 
large  extent  interrupted.  Regarding  the  "West  Indies 
first,  we  have  to  note  that  their  former  prosperity  has 
waned.  The  black  races  under  the  new  order  of 
things  have  multiplied  exceedingly.  Where  left  to 
themselves  under  British  rule,  whether  with  or  with- 
out the  political  institutions  of  the  advanced  European 
peoples,  they  have  not  developed  the  natural  resources 
of  the  rich  and  fertile  lands  they  have  inherited.  Nor 
do  they  show  any  desire  to  undertake  the  task. 
The  descriptions  we  have  had  presented  to  us  for 
many  years  past  by  writers  and  politicians  of  some  of 
the  West  India  Islands,  read  like  accounts  of  a  former 
civilisation.  Decaying  harbours,  once  crowded  with 
shipping;  ruined  wharves,  once  busy  with  commerce; 
roofless  warehouses;  stately  buildings  falling  to  ruins 
and  overgrown  with  tropical  creepers;  deserted  mines 
and  advancing  forests, — these  are  some  of  the  signs  of 
the  change.  In  Hayti  where  the  blacks  have  been 
independent  of  European  control  for  the  greater  part 
of  a  century,  we  have  even  a  more  gloomy  picture. 
Revolution  has  succeeded  revolution,  often  accompanied 
by  revolting  crime ;  under  the  outward  forms  of  Euro- 
pean government  every  form  of  corruption  and  licence 

1    The  English  in  the  West  Indies,  p.  6. 


310  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

has  prevailed ;  its  commerce  has  been  more  than  once 
almost  extinguished  by  its  political  revolutions ;  the 
resources  of  the  country  remain  undeveloped ;  inter- 
course with  white  races  is  not  encouraged,  and  the  Black 
Republic,  instead  of  advancing,  is  said  to  be  drifting 
slowly  backwards. 

Turning  to  the  mainland  of  Central  America  and  the 
vast  territories  embraced  in  tropical  South  America,  once 
under  the  rule  of  the  Spaniards  and  Portuguese,  the 
spectacle  is  in  some  respects  more  noteworthy.  In  this 
expanse,  which  includes  over  three-fourths  of  the  entire 
continental  area  south  of  the  territory  of  the  United 
States,  we  have  one  of  the  richest  regions  of  the  earth. 
Under  the  outward  forms  of  European  government  it 
appears,  however,  to  be  slowly  drifting  out  of  our  civil- 
isation. The  habit  has  largely  obtained  amongst  us  of 
thinking  of  these  countries  as  inhabited  by  European 
races  and  as  included  in  our  Western  civilisation, — a 
habit  doubtless  due  to  the  tendency  to  regard  them  as 
colonies  of  European  powers  which  have  become  inde- 
pendent after  the  manner  of  the  United  States.  As  a 
matter  of  fact  this  view  has  little  to  justify  it.  In 
the  twenty -two  republics  comprising  the  territory  in 
question,  considerably  over  three -fourths  of  the  entire 
population  are  descendants  of  the  original  Indian 
inhabitants,  or  imported  negroes,  or  mixed  races. 
The  pure -white  population  appears  to  be  unable  to 
maintain  itself  for  more  than  a  limited  number  of 
generations  without  recruiting  itself  from  the  outside. 
It  is  a  gradually  diminishing  element,  tending  to  ally 
itself  to  an  increasing  degree  with  "colour."  Both  for 
climatic  reasons,  and  in  obedience  to  the  general  law  of 
population  already  noticed,  by  which  the  upper  strata  of 
society  (to  which  the  white  population  for  the  most  part 


x  CONCLUDING  REMARKS  311 

belongs)  are  unable  to  maintain  themselves  apart  for 
any  considerable  period,  we  must,  apparently,  look 
forward  to  the  time  when  these  territories  will  be  almost 
exclusively  peopled  by  the  Black  and  Indian  races. 

Meanwhile  the  resources  of  this  large  region  remain 
almost  undeveloped  or  run  to  waste.  During  the  past 
fifty  years  the  European  powers  may  be  said  to 
have  endeavoured  to  develop  them  in  a  manner  that 
apparently  promised  to  be  advantageous  to  both 
parties,  and  not  inconsistent  with  the  spirit  of  the 
new  altruistic  ideas  which  have  come  to  govern  men's 
minds.  Since  the  period  of  their  independence,  im- 
mense sums  have  been  borrowed  by  the  republics  of 
Central  and  South  America,  with  the  object  of  develop- 
ing their  resources,  and  large  amounts  have  also  been 
invested  by  private  persons  in  public  enterprises  under-, 
taken  by  Europeans  in  these  countries.  But  the 
general  prevalence  of  those  qualities  which  distinguish 
peoples  of  low  social  efficiency  has  been  like  a  blight 
over  the  whole  region.  In  nearly  all  the  republics 
in  question  the  history  of  government  has  been  the 
same.  Under  the  outward  forms  of  written  laws 
and  constitutions  of  the  most  exemplary  character, 
they  have  displayed  a  general  absence  of  that  sense  of 
public  and  private  duty  which  has  always  distinguished 
peoples  who  have  reached  a  state  of  high  social  develop- 
ment. Corruption  in  all  departments  of  the  government, 
insolvency,  bankruptcy,  and  political  revolutions  succeed- 
ing each  other  at  short  intervals,  have  become  almost  the 
normal  incidents  of  public  life — the  accompanying 
features  being  a  permanent  state  of  uncertainty,  lack  of 
energy  and  enterprise  amongst  the  people,  and  general 
commercial  stagnation.  Much  of  the  territory  occupied 
by  these  states  is  amongst  the  richest  in  the  world  in 


312  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

natural  resources.  Yet  we  seem  to  have  reached  a  stage 
in  which  the  enterprise  of  the  Western  races  is  almost  as 
effectively  excluded  therefrom,  or  circumscribed  therein, 
as  in  the  case  of  China.  Not,  however,  through  any 
spirit  of  exclusiveness  in  the  people  or  desire  to  develop 
these  resources  themselves,  but  by,  on  the  one  hand,  the 
lack  in  the  inhabitants  of  qualities  contributing  to  social 
efficiency,  and,  on  the  other,  by  the  ascendency  in  the 
minds  of  the  "Western  peoples  of  that  altruistic  spirit 
which,  except  in  a  clear  case  of  duty  or  necessity,  deprives 
any  attempt  to  assume  by  force  the  government  and 
administration  of  the  resources  of  other  peoples  of 
the  moral  force  necessary  to  ensure  its  success. 

Now  it  would  appear  probable  that  we  have,  in  the 
present  peculiar  relationship  of  the  Western  peoples  to 
the  coloured  races,  the  features  of  a  transition  of  great 
interest  and  importance,  the  nature  of  which  is,  as  yet, 
hardly  understood.  It  is  evident  that,  despite  the 
greater  consideration  now  shown  for  the  rights  of 
the  lower  races,  there  can  be  no  question  as  to  the 
absolute  ascendency  in  the  world  to-day  of  the  Western 
peoples  and  of  Western  civilisation.  There  has  been 
no  period  in  history  when  this  ascendency  has  been  so 
unquestionable  and  so  complete  as  in  the  time  in  which 
we  are  living.  No  one  can  doubt  that  it  is  within  the 
power  of  the  leading  European  peoples  of  to-day — should 
they  so  desire — to  parcel  out  the  entire  equatorial 
regions  of  the  earth  into  a  series  of  satrapies,  and  to 
administer  their  resources,  not  as  in  the  past  by  a 
permanently  resident  population,  but  from  the  temperate 
regions  and  under  the  direction  of  a  relatively  small 
European  official  population.  And  this  without  any  fear 
of  effective  resistance  from  the  inhabitants.  Always, 
however,  assuming  that  there  existed  a  clear  call  of 


x  CONCLUDING  REMARKS  313 

duty  or  necessity  to  provide  the  'moral  force  necessary 
for  such  action. 

It  is  this  last  stipulation  which  it  is  all-important 
to  remember  in  any  attempt  which  is  made  to  estimate 
the  probable  course  of  events  in  the  future.  For  it 
removes  at  once  the  centre  of  interest  and  observation 
to  the  lands  occupied  by  the  European  peoples.  It  is, 
in  short,  in  the  development  in  progress  amongst  these 
peoples,  and  not  in  the  events  taking  place  to-day  in 
lands  occupied  by  the  black  and  coloured  races,  that  we 
must  seek  for  the  controlling  factor  in  the  immediate 
future  of  the  tropical  regions  of  the  world.1 

Now,  stress  has  been  laid  in  the  preceding  chapters 
on  the  fact  that  we  have  in  the  altruistic  development 
that  has  been  slowly  taking  place  amongst  the  European 

1  Mr.  C.  H.  Pearson,  in  a  prediction  which  has  recently  attracted 
attention,  hai,  it  appears  to  the  writer,  made  the  serious  mistake  of  esti- 
mating the  future  by  watching  the  course  of  events  outside  the  temperate 
regions,  rather  than  by  following  the  clue  to  those  events  which  we 
have  in  the  development  in  progress  amongst  the  Western  peoples.  He 
accordingly  ventures  to  foretell  that  "  The  day  will  come,  and  perhaps  is 
not  far  distant,  when  the  European  observer  will  look  round  to  see  the 
globe  girdled  with  a  continuous  zone  of  the  black  and  yellow  races,  no 
longer  too  weak  for  aggression  or  under  tutelage,  but  independent,  or 
practically  BO,  in  government,  monopolising  the  trade  of  their  own  regions, 
and  circumscribing  the  industry  of  the  European ;  when  Chinamen  and 
the  nations  of  Hindostan,  the  States  of  South  America,  by  that  time 
predominantly  Indian,  and  it  may  be  African  nations  of  the  Congo  and 
the  Zambesi,  under  a  dominant  caste  of  foreign  rulers,  are  represented  by 
fleets  in  the  European  seas,  invited  to  international  conferences,  and 
welcomed  as  allies  in  the  quarrels  of  the  civilised  world.  The  citizens  of 
these  countries  will  then  be  taken  up  into  the  social  relations  of  the 
white  races,  will  throng  the  English  turf,  or  the  salons  of  Paris,  and  will 
be  admitted  to  intermarriage.  It  is  idle  to  say  that,  if  all  this  should 
come  to  pass,  our  pride  of  place  will  not  be  humiliated.  We  were 
struggling  amongst  ourselves  for  supremacy  in  a  world  which  we  thought 
of  as  destined  to  belong  to  the  Aryan  and  to  the  Christian  faith,  to  the 
letters  and  arts  and  charm  of  social  manners  which  we  have  inherited 
from  the  best  times  in  the  past.  We  shall  wake  to  find  ourselves  elbowed 
and  hustled,  and  perhaps  even  thrust  aside,  by  peoples  whom  we  looker! 
down  upon  as  servile  and  thought  of  as  bound  always  to  minister  to  our 
needs." — National  Life  and  Character,  chap.  i. 


314  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

peoples  the  clue  to  the  efficiency  of  our  civilisation. 
It  is  this  development  which — by  its  influence  in  break- 
ing down  an  earlier  organisation  of  society,  and  by  its 
tendency  to  bring,  for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of 
the  race,  all  the  people  into  the  rivalry  of  life  on  a  foot- 
ing of  equality  of  opportunity — has  raised  our  Western 
civilisation  to  its  present  position  of  ascendency  in  the 
world.  It  must  be  always  remembered,  however, 
that  a  principal  cause  operating  in  producing  it  has 
been  the  doctrine  peculiar  to  the  ethical  system  upon 
which  our  civilisation  is  founded — the  doctrine,  stead- 
fastly and  uncompromisingly  held,  of  the  native  equality 
of  all  men.  So  great  has  been  the  resistance  to  be 
overcome,  so  exceptional  in  the  history  of  the  race 
has  been  the  nature  of  the  process  of  expansion  through 
which  we  have  passed,  that  only  a  doctrine  held  as  this 
has  been,  and  supported  by  the  tremendous  sanctions 
behind  it,  could  have  effected  so  great  a  social  trans- 
formation. Of  such  importance  has  been  the  character 
of  this  process,  and  so  strong  has  been  the  social  instinct 
that  has  recognised  its  vital  significance  to  the  Western 
peoples  themselves,  that  everything  has  gone  down 
before  the  doctrine  which  produced  it.  It  is  this 
doctrine  which  has  raised  the  negro  in  the  Southern 
States  of  North  America  to  the  rank  of  citizen  of  the 
United  States,  despite  the  incongruous  position  which 
he  now  occupies  in  that  country.  It  is  before  this 
doctrine  (because  of  its  predominant  importance  to 
ourselves),  and  not  before  the  coloured  races,  that  the 
European  peoples  have  retreated  in  those  tropical  lands 
which,  being  unsuitable  for  colonisation,  could  have  been 
ruled  and  developed  only  under  a  system  of  military 
occupation. 

We  must,  therefore,  in  any  attempt  to  estimate  our 


x  CONCLUDING  REMARKS  315 

future  relationship  to  the  coloured  races  outside  the 
temperate  regions,  keep  clearly  in  mind  the  hitherto 
supreme  importance  to  the  Western  peoples  of  this 
altruistic  development,  and,  therefore,  of  the  doctrine  of 
the  native  equality  of  men  which  has  accompanied  it. 

Now,  there  are  two  great  events  which  will  in  all 
probability  fill  a  great  part  in  the  history  of  the 
twentieth  century.  The  first  will  be  the  accomplish- 
ment amongst  the  Western  peoples  of  the  last  stage 
of  that  process  of  social  development  which  tends  to 
bring  all  the  people  into  the  rivalry  of  life  on  conditions 
of  social  equality.  The  other  will  be  the  final  filling 
up  by  these  peoples  of  all  those  tracts  in  the  temperate 
regions  of  the  earth  suitable  for  permanent  occupation. 
As  both  these  processes  tend  toward  completion  it 
would  appear  that  we  must  expect  our  present  rela- 
tionship towards  the  coloured  races  occupying  terri- 
tories outside  the  temperate  zones  to  undergo  further 
development.  With  the  completion  of  that  process 
of  social  evolution  in  which  the  doctrine  of  the 
native  equality  of  men  has  played  so  important  a  part 
— and,  therefore,  with  the  probable  modification  of  that 
instinct  which  has  hitherto  recognised  the  vital  necessity 
to  ourselves  of  maintaining  this  doctrine  in  its  most 
uncompromising  form — it  seems  probable  that  there 
must  arise  a  tendency  to  scrutinise  more  closely  the 
existing  differences  between  ourselves  and  the  coloured 
races  as  regards  the  qualities  contributing  to  social 
efficiency ;  this  tendency  being  accompanied  by  a 
disposition  to  relax  our  hitherto  prevalent  opinion  that 
the  doctrine  of  equality  requires  us  to  shut  our  eyes 
to  those  differences  where  political  relations  are  con- 
cerned. 

As    the  growth  of  this  feeling  will  be  coincident 


316  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP, 

with  the  filling  up  to  the  full  limit  of  the  remaining 
territories  suitable  for  European  occupation  and  the 
growing  pressure  of  population  therein,  it  may  be 
expected  that  the  inexpediency  of  allowing  a  great 
extent  of  territory  in  the  richest  region  of  the  globe — 
that  comprised  within  the  tropics — to  remain  un- 
developed, with  its  resources  running  largely  to  waste 
under  the  management  of  races  of  low  social  efficiency, 
will  be  brought  home  with  ever-growing  force  to  the 
minds  of  the  Western  peoples.  The  day  is  probably 
not  far  distant  when,  with  the  advance  science  is  making, 
we  shall  recognise  that  it  is  in  the  tropics,  and  not  in  the 
temperate  zones  that  we  have  the  greatest  food-producing 
and  material -producing  regions  of  the  earth ;  that  the 
natural  highways  of  commerce  in  the  world  should  be 
those  which  run  north  and  south ;  and  that  we  have  the 
highest  possible  interest  in  the  proper  development  and 
efficient  administration  of  the  tropical  regions,  and  in 
an  exchange  of  products  therewith  on  a  far  larger  scale 
than  has  been  yet  attempted  or  imagined. 

The  question  that  will,  therefore,  present  itself  for 
solution  will  be :  How  is  the  development  and  efficient 
administration  of  these  regions  to  be  secured?  The 
ethical  development  that  has  taken  place  in  our 
civilisation  has  rendered  the  experiment  once  made  to 
develop  their  resources  by  forced  native  labour  no 
longer  possible,  or  permissible  even  if  possible.  We 
have  already  abandoned,  under  pressure  of  experience, 
the  idea  which  at  one  time  prevailed  that  the  tropical 
regions  might  be  occupied  and  permanently  colonised 
by  European  races  as  vast  regions  in  the  temperate 
climes  have  been.  Within  a  measurable  period  in  the 
future,  and  under  pressure  of  experience,  we  shall 
probably  also  have  to  abandon  the  idea  which  has  in 


x  CONCLUDING  REMARKS  317 

like  manner  prevailed  for  a  time,  that  the  coloured  races 
left  to  themselves  possess  the  qualities  necessary  to  the 
development  of  the  rich  resources  of  the  lands  they 
have  inherited.  For,  a  clearer  insight  into  the  laws 
that  have  shaped  the  course  of  human  evolution  must 
bring  us  to  see  that  the  process  which  has  gradually 
developed  the  energy,  enterprise,  and  social  efficiency  of 
the  race  northwards,  and  which  has  left  less  richly 
endowed  in  this  respect  the  peoples  inhabiting  the 
regions  where  the  conditions  of  life  are  easiest,  is  no 
passing  accident  or  the  result  of  circumstances  change- 
able at  will,  but  part  of  the  cosmic  order  of  things 
which  we  have  no  power  to  alter. 

It  would  seem  that  the  solution  which  must  develop 
itself  under  pressure  of  circumstances  in  the  future  is, 
that  the  European  races  will  gradually  come  to  realise 
that  the  tropics  must  be  administered  from  the  temper- 
ate regions.  There  is  no  insurmountable  difficulty  in 
the  task.  Even  now  all  that  is  required  to  ensure  its 
success  is  a  clearly-defined  conception  of  moral  necessity. 
This,  it  would  seem,  must  come  under  the  conditions 
referred  to,  when  the  energetic  races  of  the  world,  having 
completed  the  colonisation  of  the  temperate  regions,  are 
met  with  the  spectacle  of  the  resources  of  the  richest 
regions  of  the  earth  still  running  largely  to  waste  under 
inefficient  management. 

In  discussing  the  present  condition  of  the  tropical 
regions  of  America  no  reference  was  made  to  the  experi- 
ment which,  in  the  corresponding  regions  of  the  Eastern 
Hemisphere,  has  been  taking  place  under  British  rule  in 
India.  For  the  past  half-century  the  relationship  exist- 
ing between  England  and  India  has  been  the  cause  of 
considerable  heart  -  searching  and  conflict  of  opinion 
amongst  politicians  of  the  more  advanced  school  in 


3i 8  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

England.  The  means  whereby  a  footing  was  at  first 
obtained  in  that  country  had  little  to  distinguish  them 
from  those  already  mentioned  which  led  the  Euro},  can 
races  at  one  time  to  occupy  vast  territories  in  tropical 
regions.  In  the  altruistic  development  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  which  has  so  profoundly  affected  the 
relationships  of  the  European  peoples  to  other  races,  it 
has  come  to  be  felt  by  many  politicians  that  the 
position  of  Great  Britain  in  India  involved  a  denial 
of  the  spirit  actuating  the  advanced  peoples,  and 
that  it  tended  to  become  in  consequence  morally  in- 
defensible. This  was  undoubtedly  the  feeling  in  the 
minds  of  a  considerable  section  of  persons  in  England 
at  no  distant  date  in  the  past. 

Nevertheless,  as  time  has  gone  by,  other  features  of 
the  position  have  pressed  themselves  with  growing  force 
upon  the  minds  of  the  British  people.  Exceptionally 
influenced  as  the  British  nation  has  been  by  the  altru- 
istic spirit  underlying  our  civilisation,  its  administra- 
tion of  the  Indian  peninsula  has  never  been  marked 
by  those  features  which  distinguished  Spanish  rule  in 
the  American  continent.  English  rule  has  tended  more 
and  more  to  involve  the  conscientious  discharge  of  the 
duties  of  our  position  towards  the  native  races.  We 
have  respected  their  rights,  their  ideas,  their  religions, 
and  even  their  independence  to  the  utmost  extent 
compatible  with  the  efficient  administration  of  the 
government  of  the  country. 

The  result  has  been  remarkable.  There  has  been  for 
long  in  progress  in  India  a  steady  development  of  the 
resources  of  the  country  which  cannot  be  paralleled  in 
any  other  tropical  region  of  the  world.  Public  works  on 
the  most  extensive  scale  and  of  the  most  permanent  char- 
acter have  been  undertaken  and  completed  ;  roads  and 


x  CONCLUDING  REMARKS  319 

bridges  have  been  built ;  mining  and  agriculture  have 
been  developed ;  irrigation  works,  which  have  added  con- 
siderably to  the  fertility  and  resources  of  large  tracts  of 
country,  have  been  constructed  ;  even  sanitary  reform  is 
beginning  to  make  considerable  progress.  European 
enterprise  too,  attracted  by  security  and  integrity  in 
the  government,  has  been  active.  Railways  have  been 
gradually  extended  over  the  Peninsula.  Indian  tea, 
almost  unknown  a  short  time  ago  has,  through  the 
planting  and  cultivation  of  suitable  districts  under  Euro- 
pean supervision,  already  come  into  serious  competition 
with  the  Chinese  article  in  the  markets  of  the  world. 
The  cotton  industry  of  India  has  already  entered  on 
friendly  rivalry  with  that  of  Lancashire.  Other  in- 
dustries, suited  to  the  conditions  of  the  country,  are 
in  like  manner  rising  into  prominence,  without  any 
kind  of  artificial  protection  or  encouragement;  the 
only  contribution  of  the  ruling  powers  to  their  wel- 
fare being  the  guarantee  of  social  order  and  the 
maintenance  of  the  conditions  of  efficiency  and  in- 
tegrity in  the  administration  of  the  departments  of 
government. 

The  commerce  of  the  country  has  expanded  in  a 
still  more  striking  manner.  In  the  largest  open  market 
in  the  world,  that  which  Great  Britain  provides,  India 
now  stands  third  on  the  list  as  contributor  of  produce, 
ranking  only  below  the  United  States  and  France,  and 
above  Germany  and  all  our  Australian  colonies  together. 
She  takes,  too,  as  much  as  she  gives,  for  her  exports  to 
and  imports  from  the  United  Kingdom  nearly  balance 
each  other.  In  the  character  of  importer  she  is,  indeed, 
the  largest  of  all  the  customers  of  Great  Britain,  our 
Australasian  colonies  and  the  United  States  coming 

O 

after  her  on  the  list.     This  exchange  of  products  has  all 


320  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP 

the  appearance  of  being  as  profitable  as  it  is  creditable 
to  both  parties  concerned. 

Very  different,  too,  is  the  spirit  animating  both  sides 
in  this  development  of  the  resources  of  India  as  com- 
pared with  that  which  prevailed  in  past  times.  There 
is  no  question  now  of  the  ruling  race  merely  exploiting 
India  to  their  own  selfish  advantage.  Great  Britain 
desires  to  share  in  the  prosperity  she  has  assisted  in 
creating,  it  is  true ;  but,  for  the  most  part,  she  shares 
indirectly  and  in  participation  with  the  rest  of  the 
world.  India  sends  her  products  to  British  markets, 
but  she  is  equally  free  to  send  them  elsewhere.  As  her 
development  proceeds  she  offers  a  larger  market  for  the 
products  of  our  industries  ;  but  England  has  reserved  to 
herself  no  exclusive  advantages  in  Indian  markets. 
Under  the  principle  of  free  trade  all  the  rest  of  the 
world  may  compete  with  her  on  equal  terms  in  those 
markets.  Our  gain  tends  to  be  a  gain,  not  only  to 
India,  but  to  civilisation  in  general. 

The  object-lesson  that  all  this  has  afforded  has 
not  been  without  its  effect  on  English  public  opinion — 
an  effect  which  deepens  as  the  true  nature  of  the 
relationship  existing  between  the  two  countries  is  more 
generally  understood.  Nor  is  there  lack  of  similar  ex- 
periences elsewhere.  The  work  undertaken  by  France 
in  Algeria  and  Tunis,  although  it  has  differed  in  many 
important  respects  from  that  performed  by  Great 
Britain  in  India,  and  although  it  has  been  undoubtedly 
more  directly  inspired  by  the  thought  of  immediate 
benefit  to  French  interests,1  has  been  on  the  whole,  it 
must  be  frankly  confessed,  work  done  in  the  cause  of 

1  For  instance,  the  Times  prints  the  following  dispatch  from  its 
correspondent  at  Dunkirk,  dated  4th  August  1893  :  "From  1st  October 
the  carrying  trade  between  Algeria  and  France  will  be  exclusively  con- 


x  CONCLUDING  REMARKS  321 

civilisation  in  general.  Within  the  past  decade  we 
have  had  a  more  striking  lesson  still  in  the  case  of 
Egypt.  Some  seventeen  years  ago  that  country, 
although  within  sight  of,  and  in  actual  contact  with, 
European  civilisation,  had  reached  a  condition  of 
disaster  through  misgovernment,  extravagance,  and 
oppression  without  example,  as  a  recent  writer,  who 
speaks  with  authority,  has  insisted,  "  in  the  financial 
history  of  any  country  from  the  remotest  ages  to  the 
present  time."1  Within  thirteen  years  the  public  debt 
of  a  country  of  only  6  millions  of  inhabitants  had  been 
increased  from  3  millions  to  89  millions,  or  nearly 
thirty-fold.2  With  a  submissive  population,  a  corrupt 
bureaucracy,  and  a  reckless,  ambitious,  and  voluptuous 
ruler,  surrounded  by  adventurers  of  every  kind,  we  had 
all  the  elements  of  national  bankruptcy  and  ruin. 
Things  drifted  from  bad  to  worse,  but  it  was  felt  that 
nothing  could  be  more  at  variance,  theoretically,  with 
the  principles  of  the  Liberal  party  then  in  power  in 
England,  than  active  interference  by  the  English  people 
in  the  affairs  of  that  country.  Yet  within  a  few  years 
circumstances  had  proved  stronger  than  prevailing 
views,  and  England  found  herself  most  unwillingly 
compelled  to  interfere  by  force  in  the  government  of 
Egypt;  and  obliged  to  attempt,  in  the  administration 
of  its  affairs,  what,  in  the  peculiar  conditions  prevailing, 

fined  to  French  vessels,  all  foreign  Powers,  including  Great  Britain, 
having  given  up  their  right  to  participate  in  it  This  measure  will 
chiefly  affect  British  ships  which  held  the  bulk  of  the  trade.  At  this 
port  alone  the  British  tonnage  employed  in  trading  with  Algeria 
amounted  in  1891  to  34,507  tons  net  register,  and  in  1892  to  31,103 
tons.  Had  any  European  Power  withheld  its  sanction  the  trade  must,  in 
virtue  of  existing  treaties,  have  remained  open  to  all  flags.  None  save 
England,  however,  were  sufficiently  interested  in  it  to  oppose  this  new 
concession  to  protection." 

1  England  in  Egypt,   by  Alfred   Milner,  late  Under  -  Secretary  for 
Finance  in  Egypt.     London,  1893.  2  Ibid. 


322  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

appeared  to  be  one  of  the  most  hopeless,  difficult,  and 
thankless  tasks  ever  undertaken  by  a  nation. 

Yet  the  results  have  been  most  striking.  Within 
a  few  years  the  country  had  emerged  from  a  condition 
of  chronic  and  apparently  hopeless  bankruptcy,  and 
attained  to  a  position  of  solvency,  with  a  revenue  tend- 
ing to  outrun  expenditure.  Great  improvements  in  the 
administration  of  the  state  departments  had  been  effected. 
Public  works  which  have  greatly  contributed  to  the 
prosperity  of  the  country  had  been  completed.  The 
Kurbash  had  been  suppressed;  the  Corve'e  had  been 
reduced ;  the  Barrage  had  been  repaired ;  the  native 
administration  of  justice  had  been  improved.  Under  an 
improved  system  of  irrigation  the  area  of  land  won  from 
the  desert  for  cultivation  was  enormously  increased. 
The  cotton  crop,  representing  one-third  of  the  entire 
agricultural  wealth  of  the  country,  had  increased  50  per 
cent  in  a  few  years.  The  foreign  trade  increased  to  the 
highest  point  it  had  ever  attained;  and  the  credit  of 
the  country  so  far  improved  that  within  nine  years  the 
price  of  its  Unified  stock  had  risen  from  59  to  98. 

All  these  results  were  attained  by  simple  means; 
by  the  exercise  of  qualities  which  are  not  usually 
counted  either  brilliant  or  intellectual,  but  which  never- 
theless are,  above  all  others,  characteristic  of  peoples 
capable  of  attaining  a  high  degree  of  social  efficiency, 
and  of  those  peoples  only.  British  influence  in  Egypt, 
Mr.  Milner  maintains,  "is  not  exercised  to  impose  an 
uncongenial  foreign  system  upon  a  reluctant  people.  It 
is  a  force  making  for  the  triumph  of  the  simplest  ideas 
of  honesty,  humanity,  and  justice,  to  the  value  of  which 
Egyptians  are  just  as  much  alive  as  any  one  else."1 

»  England  in  Eyypt,  by  Alfred  Milner,  late  Under  -  Secretary  for 
Finance  in  Fgypt  London,  1893. 


x  CONCLUDING  REMARKS  323 

Nor  can  it  be  said  that  Great  Britain  has  exploited 
Egypt  in  her  own  interest,  or  obtained  any  exclusive 
advantage  by  the  development  of  the  resources  of  the 
country.  It  is  true  that  she  does  benefit,  and  benefit 
considerably,  by  the  improvement  which  has  followed. 
But  it  is  in  the  same  manner  as  in  India.  For,  says  Mr. 
Milner,  "the  improvement  of  Egyptian  administration 
leads  directly  to  the  revival  of  Egyptian  trade,  and  in 
that  increase,  England,  who  has  more  than  half  the 
trade  of  Egypt  in  her  hands,  possesses  a  direct  interest 
of  the  most  unmistakable  kind.  Our  own  country  does 
thus,  after  all,  obtain  a  recompense,  and  a  recompense 
at  once  most  substantial  and  most  honourable  for  any 
sacrifices  she  may  make  for  Egypt.  She  gains,  not  at 
the  expense  of  others,  but  along  with  others.  If  she 
is  the  greatest  gainer,  it  is  simply  because  she  is  the 
largest  partner  in  the  business." l  But  "  neither  directly 
nor  indirectly  has  Great  Britain  drawn  from  her  pre- 
dominant position  any  profit  at  the  expense  of  other 
nations."  2  Our  gain  is  there  also  the  gain  of  civilisation. 

It  is  to  be  expected  that  as  time  goes  on,  and  an 
approach  is  made  to  the  conditions  before  mentioned, 
such  object-lessons  as  these  will  not  be  without  their 
effect  on  the  minds  of  the  European  races.  It  will 
probably  come  to  be  recognised  that  experiments  in 
developing  the  resources  of  regions  unsuitable  for  Euro- 
pean colonisation,  such  as  that  now  in  progress  in  India, 
differ  essentially  both  in  character  and  in  spirit  from 
all  past  attempts.  It  will  probably  be  made  clear,  and 
that  at  no  distant  date,  that  the  last  thing  our  civilisa- 
tion is  likely  to  permanently  tolerate  is  the  wasting  of 
the  resources  of  the  richest  regions  of  the  earth  through 

1  England  in  Egypt,  by  Alfred  Milner,  late  Under  -  Secretary  for 
Finance  in  Egypt     London,  1893.  8  Ibid. 


324  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

the  lack  of  the  elementary  qualities  of  social  efficiency  in 
the  races  possessing  them.  The  right  of  those  races  to 
remain  in  possession  will  be  recognised ;  but  it  will  be 
no  part  of  the  future  conditions  of  such  recognition  that 
they  shall  be  allowed  to  prevent  the  utilisation  of  the 
immense  natural  resources  which  they  have  in  charge. 
At  no  remote  date,  with  the  means  at  the  disposal  of 
our  civilisation,  the  development  of  these  resources 
must  become  one  of  the  most  pressing  and  vital  ques- 
tions engaging  the  attention  of  the  Western  races.  The 
advanced  societies  have,  to  some  extent,  already  intui- 
tively perceived  the  nature  of  the  coming  change.  We 
have  evidence  of  a  general  feeling,  which  recognises  the 
immense  future  importance  of  the  tropical  regions  of  the 
earth  to  the  energetic  races,  in  that  partition  of  Africa 
amongst  the  European  powers  which  forms  one  of  the 
most  remarkable  signs  of  the  times  at  the  end  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  The  same  feeling  may  be  per- 
ceived even  in  the  United  States,  where  the  necessity 
for  the  future  predominance  of  the  influence  of  the 
English-speaking  peoples  over  the  American  Continents 
is  already  recognised  by  a  kind  of  national  instinct  that 
may  be  expected  to  find  clearer  expression  as  time 
goes  on. 

Lastly,  it  will  materially  help  towards  the  solution 
of  this  and  other  difficult  problems,  if  we  are  in  a  posi- 
tion, as  it  appears  we  shall  be,  to  say  with  greater  clear- 
ness in  the  future,  than  we  have  been  able  to  do  in  the 
past,  what  it  is  constitutes  superiority  and  inferiority  oi 
race.  We  shall  probably  have  to  set  aside  many  of  our 
old  ideas  on  the  subject.  Neither  in  respect  alone  oi 
colour,  nor  of  descent,  nor  even  of  the  possession  of  high 
intellectual  capacity,  can  science  give  us  any  warrant 
for  speaking  of  one  race  as  superior  to  another  The 


x  CONCLUDING  REMARKS  325 

evolution  which  man  is  undergoing  is,  over  and  above 
everything  else,  a  social  evolution.  There  is,  therefore, 
but  one  absolute  test  of  superiority.  It  is  only  the  race 
possessing  in  the  highest  degree  the  qualities  contributing 
to  social  efficiency  that  can  be  recognised  as  having  any 
claim  to  superiority. 

But  these  qualities  are  not  as  a  rule  of  the  brilliant 
order,  nor  such  as  strike  the  imagination.  Occupying  a 
high  place  amongst  them  are  such  characteristics  as 
strength  and  energy  of  character,  humanity,  probity 
and  integrity,  and  simple-minded  devotion  to  concep- 
tions of  duty  in  such  circumstances  as  may  arise.  Those 
who  incline  to  attribute  the  very  wide  influence  which 
the  English-speaking  peoples  have  come  to  exercise  in 
the  world  to  the  Machiavelian  schemes  of  their  rulers 
are  often  very  wide  of  the  truth.  This  influence  is,  to  a 
large  extent,  due  to  qualities  not  at  all  of  a  showy 
character.  It  is,  for  instance,  a  fact  of  more  than  super- 
ficial significance,  and  one  worth  remembering,  that  in 
the  South  American  Eepublics,  where  the  British  peoples 
move  amongst  a  mixed  crowd  of  many  nationalities, 
the  quality  which  has  come  to  be  accepted  as  dis- 
tinctive of  them  is  simply  "  the  word  of  an  Englishman." 
In  like  manner  it  is  qualities  such  as  humanity,  strength, 
and  uprightness  of  character,  and  devotion  to  the  im- 
mediate calls  of  duty  without  thought  of  brilliant  ends 
and  ideal  results,  which  have  largely  contributed  to  render 
English  rule  in  India  successful  when  similar  experi- 
ments elsewhere  have  been  disastrous.  It  is  to  the 
exercise  of  qualities  of  this  class  that  we  must  also  chiefly 
attribute  the  success  which  has  so  far  attended  the 
political  experiment  of  extraordinary  difficulty  which 
England  has  undertaken  in  Egypt.  And  it  is  upon  just 
the  same  qualities,  and  not  upon  any  ideal  schemes  for 


326  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

solving  the  social  problem,  that  we  must  depend  to  carry 
us  safely  through  the  social  revolution  which  will  be 
upon  us  in  the  twentieth  century,  and  which  will  put 
to  the  most  severe  test  which  it  has  yet  had  to  endure, 
the  social  efficiency  of  the  various  sections  of  the  Western 
peoples. 

It  must  be  noticed  that  the  conclusion  here  em- 
phasised is  the  same  towards  which  the  historian  with 
the  methods  hitherto  at  his  command  has  been  already 
slowly  feeling  his  way.  Said  Mr.  Lecky  recently, 
speaking  of  the  prosperity  of  nations,  and  the  causes 
thereof  as  indicated  by  history  :  "  Its  foundation  is 
laid  in  pure  domestic  life,  in  commercial  integrity,  in  a 
high  standard  of  moral  worth  and  of  public  spirit,  in 
simple  habits,  in  courage,  uprightness,  and  a  certain 
soundness  and  moderation  of  judgment  which  springs 
quite  as  much  from  character  as  from  intellect.  If 
you  would  form  a  wise  judgment  of  the  future  of  a 
nation,  observe  carefully  whether  these  qualities  are 
increasing  or  decaying.  Observe  especially  what 
qualities  count  for  most  in  public  life.  Is  character 
becoming  of  greater  or  less  importance  ?  Are  the  men 
who  obtain  the  highest  posts  in  the  nation,  men  of  whom 
in  private  life  and  irrespective  of  party  competent 
judges  speak  with  genuine  respect?  Are  they  of 
sincere  convictions,  consistent  lives,  indisputable  in- 
tegrity? ...  It  is  by  observing  this  moral  current 
that  you  can  best  cast  the  horoscope  of  a  nation."  l 

This  is  the  utterance  of  that  department  of  know- 
ledge which,  sooner  or  later,  when  its  true  foundations 
are  perceived,  must  become  the  greatest  of  all  the  sciences. 
It  is  but  the  still  small  voice  which  anticipates  the 
verdict  which  will  be  pronounced  with  larger  knowledge, 

1  The  Political  Value  of  History,  by  W.  E.  H.  Lecky. 


x  CONCLUDING  REMARKS  327 

and  in  more  emphatic  terms,  by  evolutionary  science, 
when  at  no  distant  date  it  must  enable  us,  as  we 
have  never  been  enabled  before,  "  to  look  beyond  the 
smoke  and  turmoil  of  our  petty  quarrels,  and  to  detect, 
in  the  slow  developments  of  the  past,  the  great  per- 
manent forces  that  are  steadily  bearing  nations  onward 
to  improvement  or  decay." 

The  fuller  light  in  which  we  are  thus  able  to  view  the 
great  fundamental  problems  of  human  society  cannot 
be  without  a  strengthening  and  steadying  influence 
on  character.  We  see  that,  under  all  the  complex 
appearances  our  Western  civilisation  presents,  the 
central  process  working  itself  out  in  our  midst  is 
one  which  is  ever  tending  to  bring,  for  the  first  time 
in  the  history  of  the  race,  all  the  people  into  the 
competition  of  life  on  a  footing  of  equality  of  oppor- 
tunity. In  this  process  the  problem,  with  which  society 
and  legislators  will  be  concerned  for  long  into  the 
future,  will  be  how  to  secure  to  the  fullest  degree 
these  conditions  of  equality,  while  at  the  same  time 
retaining  that  degree  of  inequality  which  must  result 
from  offering  prizes  sufficiently  attractive  to  keep  up 
within  the  community  that  state  of  stress  and  exertion, 
without  which  no  people  can  long  continue  in  a  high 
state  of  social  efficiency.  For  in  the  vast  process  of 
change  in  progress  it  is  always  the  conditions  of  social 
efficiency,  and  not  those  which  individuals  or  classes 
may  desire  for  themselves,  that  the  unseen  evolutionary 
forces  at  work  amongst  us  are  engaged  in  developing. 
It  is  by  the  standard  of  social  efficiency  that  we  as 
individuals  are  ever  being  tested.  It  is  in  this  quality 
of  social  efficiency  that  nations  and  peoples  are  being 
continually,  and  for  the  most  part  unconsciously,  pitted 
against  each  other  in  the  complex  rivalry  of  life.  An>l 


328  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  CHAP. 

it  is  in  those  sections  of  the  race  where,  for  the  time 
being,  this  quality  obtains  the  highest  development,  that 
we  have  present  all  the  conditions  favourable  to  success 
and  ascendency. 

Nor  is  there  any  reason  why  the  great  social 
development  proceeding  in  our  civilisation  which  has 
been  but  feebly  and  inadequately  described  in  the  pre- 
ceding chapters,  should  be  viewed  with  distrust  by  those 
of  more  conservative  instincts  amongst  us  who  profess 
to  have  at  heart  the  highest  interests  of  humanity. 
The  movement  which  is  uplifting  the  people — neces- 
sarily to  a  large  extent  at  the  expense  of  those  above 
them — is  but  the  final  result  of  a  long  process  of  organic 
development.  All  anticipations  and  forebodings  as  to 
the  future  of  the  incoming  democracy,  founded  upon 
comparisions  with  the  past,  are  unreliable  or  worthless. 
For  the  world  has  never  before  witnessed  a  democracy 
of  the  kind  that  is  now  slowly  assuming  supreme  power 
amongst  the  Western  peoples.  To  compare  it  with 
democracies  which  held  power  under  the  ancient  empires 
is  to  altogether  misunderstand  both  the  nature  of  our 
civilisation  and  the  character  of  the  forces  that  have 
produced  it.  Neither  in  form  nor  in  spirit  have  we 
anything  in  common  with  the  democracies  of  the  past. 
Great  as  has  been  the  progress  in  outward  forms,  the 
more  important  difference  lies  far  deeper.  The  gradual 
emancipation  of  the  people  and  their  rise  to  supreme 
power  has  been  in  our  case  the  product  of  a  slow  ethical 
development  in  which  character  has  been  profoundly 
influenced,  and  in  which  conceptions  of  equality 
and  of  responsibility  to  each  other  have  obtained  a 
hold  on  the  general  mind  hitherto  unparalleled.  The 
fact  of  our  time  which  overshadows  all  others  is  the 
arrival  of  Democracy.  But  the  perception  of  the  fact  is 


x  CONCLUDING  REMARKS  329 

of  relatively  little  importance  if  we  do  not  also  realise 
that  it  is  a  new  Democracy.  There  are  many  who  speak 
of  the  new  ruler  of  nations  as  if  he  were  the  same 
idle  Demos  whose  ears  the  dishonest  courtiers  have 
tickled  from  time  immemorial.  It  is  not  so.  Even  those 
who  attempt  to  lead  him  do  not  yet  quite  understand 
him.  Those  who  think  that  he  is  about  to  bring  chaos 
instead  of  order,  do  not  rightly  apprehend  the  nature 
of  his  strength.  They  do  not  perceive  that  his  arrival 
is  the  crowning  result  of  an  ethical  movement  in  which 
qualities  and  attributes  which  we  have  been  all  taught 
to  regard  as  the  very  highest  of  which  human  nature  is 
capable,  find  the  completest  expression  they  have  ever 
reached  in  the  history  of  the  race. 


APPENDIX  I 


MARRIAGE-AGES   OF  VARIOUS   SECTIONS   OF  THE   POPULATION 
IN   ENGLAND 

THE  following  is  an  extract  (by  permission  of  the  Author  and  of 
the  Eoyal  Statistical  Society)  from  a  paper  on  Marriage-Rates  and 
Marriage-Ages  by  Dr.  William  Ogle,  M.A.,  F.R.C.P.,  etc.,  read 
before  the  Royal  Statistical  Society  of  London,  March  1890,  and 
printed  in  the  Society's  Journal,  June  1890. 

•  •••••• 

But  if  the  average  age  at  marriage  varies  but  little  from  year  to 
year,  it  is  not  so  with  the  marriage-ages  in  different  classes,  as  is 
very  clearly  to  be  seen  in  the  two  following  tables  (Tables  F  and  G), 
in  the  former  of  which  are  given  the  mean  ages  at  marriage  of 
bachelors  and  spinsters  in  different  occupational  groups,  while  the 
other  gives  the  age-distribution  of  bachelors  and  spinsters  in  the 
several  groups  at  the  time  of  marriage. 

TABLE  F. — Average  Ages  at  Marriage,  1884-85.1 


Occupation*. 

Bachelor*. 

Spinster*. 

24-06 

22-46 

Textile  hands     .        .        . 
Shoemakers,  tailors     .        . 

24-38 
24-92 
25-35 

23-43 
24-31 
23-70 

25'56 

23-66 

Commercial  clerks       .        . 
Shopkeepers,  shopmen        . 
Fanners  and  sons        . 
Professional  and  independent  class 

26-25 
26-67 
29-28 
81-22 

24-48 
24-22 
26-91 
26*40 

1  The  age-distribution  of  the  men  employed  in  the  different  occupations  differs 
much ;  and  this  would,  if  unconnected,  of  OOUTM  cause  some  difference  in  the  mean 


SOCIAL  EVOLUTION 


TABLE  G. — Age-Distribution  per  1000,  of  Bachelors  in  different 
Occupations,  and  of  their  Wives,  at  time  of  Marriage. 


Minen. 

Factory 
Hands. 

Labourers. 

Artisans. 

Shoemakers 
and  Tailors. 

Ages. 

Hen. 

Women. 

Hen. 

Women. 

Hen. 

Women. 

Hen. 

Women. 

Hen. 

Women. 

Under  age 

169 

439 

144 

837 

121 

818 

109 

282 

172 

276 

21-25 

535 

388 

558 

432 

455 

408 

489 

448 

477 

412 

25-30 

228 

123 

205 

149 

277 

184 

278 

192 

232 

183 

30-35 

47 

30 

68 

49 

88 

64 

73 

48 

76 

79 

35-40 

14 

11 

16 

18 

29 

20 

25 

16 

23 

30 

40-45 

6 

4 

12 

7 

18 

9 

17 

8 

6 

10 

45-50 

4 

5 

4 

7 

5 

4 

4 

8 

4 

50  and  up- 
wards  . 

>' 

1 

2 

4 

5 

2 

5 

2 

6 

6 

Shopkeepers  and 

Commercial 

Farmers  and 

Professional  and 

Shopmen. 

Clerks. 

Farmers'  Sons. 

Independent  Class. 

Ages. 

Hen. 

Women. 

Hen. 

Women. 

Hen. 

Women. 

Men. 

Women. 

Under  age 

55 

226 

27 

197 

31 

Ill 

7 

127 

21-25 

412 

449 

432 

450 

253 

396 

144 

402 

25-30 

323 

232 

379 

262 

349 

262 

376 

278 

80-35 

128 

62 

130 

61 

217 

115 

272 

107 

35-40 

53 

18 

13 

17 

75 

65 

98 

34 

40-45 

19 

7 

11 

7 

47 

20 

43 

24 

45-50 

6 

6 

6 

8 

14 

20 

26 

11 

60  and  up- 
wards   . 

}  4 

... 

2 

8 

14 

11 

84 

17 

These  tables  are  based  upon  samples  taken  by  me  from  the 
marriage  registers  of  1884-85.  The  samples  were  of  considerable 
size ;  still  it  is  quite  possible  that  had  they  been  larger,  and  had 
they  extended  over  a  greater  number  of  years,  the  figures  might 
have  been  somewhat  different,  though  it  is  scarcely  possible  that 
they  would  have  been  materially  altered.  They  show,  at  any  rate, 
with  sufficient  clearness,  that  the  ordinary  belief  that  the  lower  the 
station  in  life,  the  earlier  the  age  at  which  marriage  is  contracted, 
is  true,  and  that  the  difference  in  this  respect  between  the  upper 
and  the  lower  classes  is  very  great  indeed.  It  will  be  enough  if 

marriage-ages  of  the  groups.  To  meet  this  difficulty,  so  far  as  possible,  in  the  pro- 
fessional and  independent  group  were  included  students  of  law,  medicine,  theology, 
etc.,  as  also  all  men  described  simply  as  gentlemen  ;  so  also  with  shopkeepers  were 
included  shopmen,  and  with  farmers  their  sons  or  other  near  relatives  living  with 
them. 


APPENDIX  I  333 


we  take  a  single  example,  and  compare  miners,  for  instance,  with 
the  professional  class.  Of  the  miners  who  marry,  704  in  1000  are 
under  25  years  of  age ;  of  the  professional  and  independent  class 
only  151  ;  while  the  miners'  wives,  827,  and  of  the  upper  classes 
only  529,  per  1000  are  under  that  age.  The  average  marriage-age 
of  the  miners  is  24,  and  of  their  wives  22£  years ;  while  the  ages 
for  the  professional  and  independent  class  are  respectively  31  and 
26  J  years;  a  difference  of  seven  years  for  the  husbands  and  four 
years  for  the  wives. 

The  table  of  mean  ages  has  already  appeared  in  the  forty- 
ninth  Annual  Report  of  the  Registrar-General,  and  has  been  often 
quoted  since;  but,  whenever  I  have  chanced  to  see  it  cited,  I 
have  been  somewhat  surprised  to  find  that  the  ages  for  the  men 
were  alone  given,  and  no  notice  taken  of  the  respective  ages  of  the 
wives.  It  appears,  however,  to  me  that  the  ages  of  the  men  at 
marriage  are,  so  far  as  concerns  the  growth  of  population,  of  com- 
paratively small  importance.  For  there  is  no  reason  whatsoever, 
so  far  as  I  am  aware,  to  suppose  that  retardation  of  marriage  in 
the  case  of  men,  of  course  within  reasonable  limits,  will  materially 
affect  the  number  of  their  offspring,  excepting  that  the  older  a 
man  is  when  he  marries  the  older  will  also  be  probably  his  wife, 
and  further,  that  the  older  he  and  she  are  at  marriage,  the  greater 
somewhat  will  be  the  chance  that  either  he  or  she  will  die  before 
the  child-bearing  period  is  fully  completed.  But  independently  of 
these  considerations,  there  is,  as  I  say,  no  reason  to  believe  that  a 
man  who  marries  at  30  will  have  a  smaller  family  than  a  man  who 
marries  at  20,  so  long  as  the  two  wives  are  of  one  and  the  same 
age.  Doubtlessly  in  the  long-run  the  wives  in  the  two  cases  will 
not  be  of  one  and  the  same  age,  for  .as  Table  H  shows,  though 
older  men  usually  marry  older  wives,  they  do  not  marry  wives 
older  in  proportion  to  their  own  greater  age.  So  far  then  as 
increase  in  population  goes,  the  matter  of  importance  is  the  age  of 
the  wife,  not  of  the  husband ;  and  any  material  diminution  in  the 
growth  of  the  people  that  is  to  be  looked  for  from  retarded 
marriage,  must  be  obtained  by  retarding  the  marriages  of  women, 
not  those  of  men.  If  greater  age  on  the  part  of  the  husband 
were  to  have  this  effect,  the  ancient  writers  whom  I  have  already 
quoted,  who  desired  above  all  things  the  rapid  growth  of  the 
population,  would  have  been  in  serious  error  in  proposing  that  the 
age  of  the  husband  should  be  30  or  37  years  ;  but  as  a  matter  of 


334  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION 

observation  they  were  well  aware  that  the  age,  of  the  man  had  but 
little  to  do  with  the  number  of  the  progeny,  while  the  age  of  the 
wife  was  of  considerable  importance,  and  this,  as  we  have  seen,  was 
put  by  them  at  18  or  19. 

As  regards  men,  it  is  not  the  age  at  which  they  marry  that  is 
of  importance,  but  the  question  whether  they  marry  at  all,  and  I 
have  consequently  tried  to  make  some  estimate  of  the  relative 
proportions  in  which  men  in  different  classes  of  life  altogether 
abstain  from  matrimony.  The  method  I  employed  was  to  go 
through  a  large  number  of  the  census  enumeration  books,  and 
ascertain  what  proportions  of  labourers  and  artisans,  of  shop- 
keepers, and  of  professional  and  independent  men,  in  1881,  were 
still  bachelors  when  they  had  reached  the  mature  age  of  50  years. 
I  expected  to  find  that  the  proportion  would  be  smallest  among  the 
artisans  and  labourers,  and  highest  in  the  professional  and  inde- 
pendent class ;  but,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  turned  out  that  it  was 
among  the  shopkeepers  that  the  proportion  of  confirmed  bachelors 
was  far  the  lowest,  as  probably,  with  more  thought  given  to  the 
subject,  might  have  been  anticipated,  seeing  that  to  a  shopkeeper 
a  wife  is  often  almost  a  business  necessity.  Next  to  the  shop- 
keepers, but  a  good  way  from  them,  came  the  artisans  and  labourers ; 
while  far  ahead  of  all  were  the  professional  and  independent  class, 
with  a  proportion  of  permanent  bachelors  far  above  the  rest. 
What  is  true  of  the  men  in  these  several  groups  is  probably  also 
true  of  the  women,  but  I  have  no  statistical  evidence  of  this. 
I  find,  however,  testimony  to  that  effect  given  by  those  who  are 
conversant  with  the  habits  of  working  women.  Thus  Miss  Collett, 
writing 1  of  the  east  end  of  London,  says,  "  Every  girl  in  the  lowest 
classes  can  get  married,  and  with  hardly  any  exceptions  every 
girl  does  marry.  This  is  not  true  of  the  middle  classes."  It 
thus  appears  that  in  the  upper  classes  not  only  do  a  larger  propor- 
tion of  persons  remain  throughout  life  unmarried,  but  those  who  do 
marry,  marry  at  a  much  more  advanced  age  than  is  the  case  with 
the  rest  of  the  population. 

*  Labour  and  Lift  of  Ou  People,  p.  474 


APPENDIX    II 

THE   WHITE  AND  COLOURED  POPULATION   OP  THE  SOUTHERN 
UNITED   STATES,    1890 

(Eeprinted  from  the  Census  Bulletin  No.  48,  dated  27th  March 

1891) 

THE  relative  rate  of  increase  of  the  white  and  coloured  popu- 
lation of  the  Southern  States  during  the  last  decade  is  a  matter  of 
such  general  importance  and  interest  as  to  demand  special  atten- 
tion. What  is  termed  the  race,  count  has,  therefore,  been  made  for 
the  South  Atlantic  and  South  Central  States,  and  for  Missouri  and 
Kansas,  in  advance  of  the  main  work  of  tabulation.  As  will  be 
seen  from  the  accompanying  tables,  the  total  population  embraced 
in  this  count  is  23,875,259,  of  which  16,868,205  were  white, 
6,996,166  coloured,  and  10,888  Chinese,  Japanese,  and  Indians.  In 
the  States  herewith  included  were  found  in  1890  fifteen-sixteenths 
of  the  entire  coloured  population  of  the  United  States,  so  that  for 
the  purpose  of  immediately  ascertaining  the  percentage  of  increase 
the  returns  of  these  States  are  adequate  and  not  likely  to  be 
materially  affected  by  the  returns  of  the  other  States  and  terri- 
tories, where  the  coloured  population  is  small. 

The  abnormal  increase  of  the  coloured  population  in  -what  is 
known  as  the  Black  Belt  during  the  decade  ending  1880  led  to 
the  popular  belief  that  the  negroes  were  increasing  at  a  much 
greater  rate  than  the  white  population.  This  error  was  a  natural 
one,  and  arose  from  the  difficulty  of  ascertaining  how  much  of  the 
increase  shown  by  the  Tenth  Census  was  real,  and  how  much  was 
due  to  the  omissions  of  the  census  of  1870.  This  question  has 
been  fully  discussed  in  Bulletin  No.  16,  and  it  is  now  merely 


336 


SOCIAL  EVOLUTION 


necessary  to  add  that  the  tabulations  herewith  given  sustain  the 
theory  already  advanced,  that  the  high  rate  of  increase  in  the 
growth  of  the  coloured  population  as  shown  in  1880  was  apparent, 
not  real,  and  was  due  to  imperfect  enumeration  in  the  Southern 
States  in  1870. 

Attention  is  first  called  to  Table  L,  showing  the  white  and 
coloured  population  of  the  States  under  discussion  at  each  census 
since  1790,  together  with  the  number  of  coloured  to  each  100,000 
white,  and  the  percentage  of  increase  respectively  of  white  and 
coloured  for  the  several  decades. 

The  table  summarises  the  entire  case.  In  1890  there  were  in 
the  States  under  discussion  6,996,166  coloured  inhabitants,  and  in 
1 880,  6, 1 42,360.  The  coloured  element  increased  during  the  decade 
at  the  rate  of  13*90  per  cent.  The  white  population  of  these 
States  in  1890  numbered  16,868,205,  and  in  1880  13,530,408. 
They  increased  during  the  decade  at  the  rate  of  24*67  per  cent, 
or  nearly  twice  as  rapidly  as  the  coloured  element. 

In  1880  the  proportion  of  white  to  persons  of  colour  in  these 
States  was  in  the  relation  of  100,000  to  45,397.  In  1890  the 
proportion  of  the  latter  class  had  diminished,  being  then  as  100,000 
to  41,475. 

During  the  past  decade  the  coloured  race  has  not  held  its  own 
against  the  white  in  a  region  where  the  climate  and  conditions  are, 
of  all  those  which  the  country  affords,  the  best  suited  to  its 
development. 


TABLE  L 


Teart. 

Population. 

Number  of 

Per  Cent  of  Increase. 

White. 

Coloured. 

100,000  White. 

White. 

Coloured. 

1790 

1,271,488 

689,884 

54,258 

1800 

1,702,980 

918,336     |       63,925 

83-94 

33-11 

1810 

2,208,785 

1,272,119     !       57,594 

2970 

38-52 

1820 

2,831,560 

1,653,240 

58,386 

28-20 

29-96 

1830 

3,660,758 

2,187,545 

59,757 

29-28 

32-32 

1840 

4,632,530 

2,701,901 

58,325 

26-55 

23-51 

1850 

6,222,418 

3,442,238 

55,320 

34-32 

27-40 

1860 

8,203,852 

4,216,241 

51,393 

81-84 

22-49 

1870 

9,812,732 

4,555,990 

46,429 

19-61 

8-06 

1880 

13,530,408 

6,142,360 

45,397 

87-89 

84  82 

1890 

16,868,205 

6,996,166 

41,475 

24  67 

18-90 

APPENDIX  II 


337 


Deferring  again  to  this  table  it  is  seen  that  in  but  three 
decades,  that  is,  from  1800  to  1830,  during  a  part  of  which  time 
the  slave-trade  was  in  progress,  has  the  coloured  race  increased 
more  rapidly  than  the  white.  Since  1830  the  white  people  have 
steadily  increased  at  a  more  rapid  rate  than  the  coloured.  This 
increase  has  not  been  effected  by  the  aid  of  immigration,  for  with 
the  exception  of  Kansas  and  Missouri  these  States  have  received 
comparatively  few  immigrants  either  from  foreign  countries  or 
from  the  Nor+^iern  States. 

Similarly  die  proportion  of  the  coloured  inhabitants  to  the 
white  increased  somewhat  between  1800  and  1830,  but  since  that 
time  it  has  steadily  diminished.  In  1830,  when  this  proportion 
was  at  its  maximum,  there  were  nearly  6  coloured  inhabitants  to 
10  white,  but  this  proportion  has  been  reduced  to  a  trifle  more 
than  4  at  the  present  date,  or  by  nearly  one-third  of  its  amount. 

The  deficiencies  of  the  ninth  census  are  so  apparent  in  this 
table  that  any  extended  reference  to  them  is  wholly  unnecessary. 

Table  II.  shows  for  each  of  the  States  under  discussion  the 
number  of  white,  coloured,  Chinese,  Japanese,  and  Indian  inhabi- 
tants according  to  the  census  of  1890  : — 

TABLE  II. 


State*. 

Total 
Population. 

White. 

Coloured. 

Chinese. 

Japanese. 

Indians. 

Total      .... 

23,875,259 

16,868,205 

6,996,166 

2581 

100 

8207 

Alabama     .... 
Arkansas    .... 
Delaware    .... 
District  of  Columbia 
Florida  ..... 

1,513,017 

1,128,179 
168,493 
230,392 
391,422 

830,796 
816,517 
139,429 
154,352 
224,461 

681,431 
311,227 
29,022 
75,927 
166  678 

40 
131 
38 
86 
101 

1 

14 

750 
304 
4 
19 
168 

1,837,353 

973,462 

863,716 

110 

1 

64 

1  427  096 

1  374  882 

51  251 

107 

856 

Kentucky        . 
Louisiana        • 
Maryland         . 
Mississippi      . 
Missouri          . 
North  Carolina 
South  Carolina 
Tennessee  .    . 
Texas     .    .    . 

1,858,635 
1,118,587 
1,042,390 
1,289,600 
2,679,184 
1,617,947 
1,151,149 
1,767,518 
2  235  523 

1,585,526 
554,712 
824,149 
539,703 
2,524,468 
1,049,191 
458,454 
1,332,971 
1  741  190 

272,981 
562,893 
218,004 
747,720 
154,131 
567,170 
692,503 
434,300 
492,837 

29 
315 
197 
122 
413 
15 
20 
64 
727 

1 
89 
6 
1 
4 

10 
8 

98 
628 
34 
2054 
168 
1571 
172 
173 
766 

Virginia      .     . 
West  Virginia. 

1,655,980 
762,794 

1,014,680 
729,262 

640,867 
33,508 

50 
16 

13 

870 
8 

[Tables  III.  IV.  and  V.  are  not  printed.] 
Z 


TABLE  VI. 


States. 

Increase  of  White. 

Increase  of  Coloured. 

1880-90. 

1870-80. 

1860-70. 

1850-60. 

1880-90. 

1870-80. 

1860-70. 

1850-CO. 

Per  cent. 

Per  cent. 

Per  cent 

Per  cent. 

Per  cent. 

Per  cent. 

Percent. 

Percent 

Alabama  .    . 

25-46 

27-01 

0-93* 

23-39 

13-55 

26-20 

8-62 

26-85 

Arkansas  .     . 

38-03 

63-35 

11-71 

99-86 

4773 

72-44 

9-81 

183-21 

Delaware  .    . 

16-04 

17-55 

12-84 

27-29 

9-76 

16-00 

5-40 

6-21 

District  of 

Columbia  . 

30-80 

33-68 

45-28 

60-15 

27-40 

37-31 

203-19 

4-15 

Florida      .     . 

57-40 

48-46 

23-55 

64-71 

31-56 

88-17 

46-29 

55-75 

Georgia     .     . 

19-16 

27-86 

8-01 

13-42 

19-11 

33-02 

17-06 

21-08 

Kansas.     .     . 

44-40 

174-89 

225-57 

18-89 

151-97 

2,628-55* 

Kentucky  .     . 

15-13 

25-35 

19-49 

2076 

0-56 

22-16 

5-91 

6:87 

Louisiana  .    . 

21-93 

25-66 

1-29 

39-91 

16-38 

32-80 

3-95 

33-59 

Maryland  .     . 

1372 

19-69 

17-36 

23-44 

3-70 

19-86 

2-49 

3-66 

Mississippi     . 

12-58 

25-20 

8-19 

19-67 

14-98 

46-40 

1-55 

4073 

Missouri    .     . 

24-80 

26-18 

50-74 

79-64 

6-04 

23-10 

0-36* 

81-61 

North  Carolina 

20-98 

27-82 

7-70 

13-91 

6-76 

35-65 

8-33 

14-40 

South  Carolina 

17-22 

35-02 

0-56* 

6-10 

14-59 

45-34 

0-85 

4-66 

Tennessee  .     . 

17-05 

21-65 

13-23 

9-23 

7-73 

25-07 

13-89 

15-10 

Texas  .     .    . 

45-43 

112-01 

34-17 

173-25 

25-28 

55-20 

38-57 

212-38 

Virginia    .     . 

15-19 

23-70 

8'48t 

17-04+ 

1-46 

2316 

+3-29* 

4-18t 

West  Virginia 

23-07 

3974 

... 

... 

29-44 

43-97 

... 

... 

*  Decrease.  f  Including  West  Virginia. 

Table  VII.  shows  the  number  of  coloured  inhabitants  in  each 
of  the  States  under  discussion  at  each  census  from  1850  to  1890 
inclusive,  under  the  supposition  that  the  total  number  of  white  wai 
100,000  :— 

TABLE  VII. 


State*. 

Number  of  Coloured  to  100,000  White* 

1890. 

1880. 

1870. 

1800. 

1880. 

Alabama       . 

82,021 

90,625 

91,201 

88,183 

80,914 

Arkansas      . 

88,116 

35,614 

83,738 

34,324 

29,415 

Delaware       . 

20,815 

22,005 

22,299 

23,874 

28,612 

District  of  Columbia 

49,191 

50,502 

49,167 

23,560 

86,230 

Florida.        . 

74,257 

88,840 

95,453 

80,618 

85,253 

Georgia         . 

88,726 

88,766 

85,322 

78,725 

73,741 

Kansas  .        . 

3,728 

4,527 

4,939 

589 

... 

Kentucky     . 

17,217 

19,711 

20,225 

25,685 

29,024 

Louisiana     • 

101,475 

106,309 

100,592 

98,018 

102,654 

Maryland      . 

26,452 

29,010 

28,966 

33,170 

89,501 

Mississippi    . 

138,543 

135,647 

126,328 

123,596 

105,103 

Missouri        . 

6,105 

7,185 

7,365 

11,143 

15,209 

North  Carolina 

54,058 

61,261 

57,725 

57,390 

57,142 

South  Carolina 

151,052 

154,519 

143,549 

141,545 

148,480 

Tennessee     . 

32,581 

35,400 

84,433 

34,234 

32,488 

Texas  . 

28,305 

32,858 

44,887 

43,460 

38,016 

Virginia        . 

63,160 

71,705 

72,019 

52,412 

58,880 

West  Virginia 

4,595 

4,369 

4,240 

APPENDIX  II  339 


The  last  two  tables  are  of  special  interest,  as  they  illustrate 
the  movements  of  the  coloured  element  during  the  past  half- 
century.  An  inspection  of  them  makes  it  evident  that  there  has 
been  no  extended  northward  movement  of  this  element  since  the 
time  of  the  civil  war.  Indeed,  with  the  exception  of  the  District  of 
Columbia,  the  border  States  appear  to  have  lost  rather  than 
gained,  and  during  the  last  decade  there  becomes  perceptible  a 
southward  movement  of  the  coloured  element  from  the  border 
States  into  those  bordering  the  Gulf,  particularly  into  Mississippi 
and  Arkansas,  where  they  have  increased  proportionately  to  the 
white.  Let  the  States  under  consideration  be  divided  into  two 
groups,  the  first  comprising  Delaware,  Maryland,  District  of 
Columbia,  Virginia,  West  Virginia,  North  Carolina,  Kentucky, 
Tennessee,  Missouri,  and  Kansas,  and  the  second  South  Carolina, 
Georgia,  Florida,  Alabama,  Mississippi,  Louisiana,  Texas,  and 
Arkansas.  In  the  first  of  these  groups  the  increase  of  the  white 
population  from  1880  to  1890  was  at  the  rate  of  22  per  cent, 
while  that  of  the  coloured  element  was  but  5 '50  per  cent.  In  the 
second  group  the  rate  of  increase  of  the  white  was  29*63  per  cent., 
while  that  of  the  coloured  was  but  19*10  per  cent.  In  the  first 
group  the  number  of  coloured  to  100,000  white  diminished  between 
1880  and  1890  from  26,700  to  23,089,  or  13'52  per  cent,  while 
in  the  second  it  diminished  from  80,116  to  73,608,  or  only  8'12 
per  cent.  There  is,  therefore,  a  perceptible  tendency  southward 
of  the  coloured  people,  which,  while  by  no  means  powerful,  has 
resulted  in  drawing  a  notable  proportion  of  that  element  from  the 
border  States  and  in  producing  in  two  of  the  far  southern  States 
a  more  rapid  increase  of  the  coloured  element  than  of  the  white. 

Of  the  States  under  discussion,  three,  namely,  South  Carolina, 
Mississippi,  and  Louisiana,  contained  in  1890  a  larger  number  of 
coloured  people  than  of  white.  Of  the  population  of  South  Carolina 
more  than  three -fifths  are  coloured.  Five  other  States,  namely, 
Alabama,  Florida,  Georgia,  North  Carolina,  and  Virginia,  con- 
tained a  coloured  element  ranging  from  one -third  to  one -half  of 
the  population. 

California  by  Mace — 1890  and  1880. 

A  special  count  by  race  was  also  made  by  this  office  for  the 
State  of  California  in  order  to  separate  the  Chinese  and  Indians 


340 


SOCIAL  EVOLUTION 


from  the  rest  of  the  population,  as  required  by  the  laws  of  that 
State,  for  purposes  of  State  apportionment.  For  the  State  as  a 
whole  the  white  population  has  increased  from  767,181  in  1880  to 
1,111,558  in  1890,  an  increase  of  344,377,  or  44-89  per  cent  The 
coloured  population  in  the  State  shows  an  increase  during  the  decade 
of  5419,  or  9 O'O 5  per  cent,  while  there  has  been  a  decrease  in  the 
Chinese  of  3451,  or  4 '5  9  per  cent.  The  whole  number  of  Indians 
in  the  State  is  less  in  1890  than  in  1880  by  3922,  or  a  decrease  of 
24'10  per  cent.  The  number  of  Japanese  in  1890  as  compared 
with  1880  is  large,  although  relatively  small  as  compared  with  the 
whole  population.  The  number  of  Japanese  returned  in  1890  is 
1099,  as  against  86  in  1880.  The  total  population  of  the  State  for 
1890  is  1,208,130,  as  compared  with  864,694  for  1880,  the  increase 
being  343,436,  and  the  per  cent  of  increase  39*72. 

California. 


The  State 

White. 

Coloured. 

Chinese. 

Japanese. 

Indians. 

1890. 

1880. 

1890. 

1880. 

1890. 

1880. 

1890. 

1880. 

1890. 

1880. 

1,111,558 

767,181 

11,437 

6018 

71,681 

75,182 

1099 

86 

12,355 

16,277 

APPENDIX   III 

The  Influence  of  Civilisation  upon  the  Movement  of  the  Population.  By 
P.  LEROY  -  BEAULIEU.  (Translation  from  the  Economist* 
Franqais,  20th  and  27th  September  1890,  published  in  the 
Journal  of  the  Royal  Statistical  Society  of  London,  June  1891.) 

Keprinted  by  permission  of  M.  Leroy-Beaulieu  and  the  Eoyal 
Statistical  Society) 

The  following  are  the  facts  in  so  far  as  regards  France  :  From 
1801  to  1810  the  number  of  births  was  in  the  proportion  of  32'3 
per  1000;  from  1811  to  1820  it  was  31'6  ;  while  from  1820  to 
1830  it  was  30'8.  This  proportion,  which  by  reason  of  its  lowness, 
is  much  to  be  regretted,  had  not,  however,  anything  very  extra- 
ordinary in  itself.  It  is  true  that  it  was  lower  than  the  actual 
birth-rate  in  Prussia,  Bavaria,  Italy,  Austria,  Hungary,  and 
Switzerland,  but  it  nevertheless  assured  to  us  an  annual  excess 
of  nearly  200,000  births  over  deaths.  From  1830  until  1850  the 
diminution  in  the  birth-rate  became  accentuated.  From  1831  to 
1840  the  proportion  of  births  was  in  the  ratio  of  29  per  1000 
inhabitants,  and  from  1841  to  1850,  of  27-4  per  1000.  Under  the 
second  empire  there  was  another  slight  falling  off.  From  1851 
to  1860  the  average  rate  was  26'3  per  1000;  and  it  remained 
absolutely  stationary  during  the  period  1860-70.  Since  then  the 
falling  off  has  become  more  marked,  as  from  1870  to  1880  the 
mean  rate  was  no  higher  than  25*4  per  1000,  and  this  proportion 
fell  to  24-6  during  the  period  1881-85  ;  it  fell  still  lower  in  1886, 
until  in  1887  it  reached  23'5,  while  in  1888  it  was  only  23'4. 
Since  the  commencement  of  this  century,  therefore,  the  procreative 
power  of  the  nation  has  fallen  from  32 '3  per  1000  to  23'4,  or  a  loss 
of  about  one-fourth,  and  since  1870  alone  this  power  has  diminished 
from  the  proportion  of  26 '3  to  23'4  per  1000. 

In   face  of    this   systematic   sterility  which  characterises    the 


342  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION 

French  race,  we  can  only  derive  consolation  from  the  fact  that  all 
other  civilised  nations  appear  to  be  tending  in  the  same  direction. 
Up  to  the  present  this  tendency,  it  is  true,  has  not  been  particularly 
marked,  but  soon,  probably  in  a  quarter  or  half  a  century,  it  will 
become  more  and  more  accentuated.  According  to  M.  de  Foville, 
it  was  only  in  Austria  and  Hungary  that  the  birth-rate  was  the 
same  in  1882  or  1883  as  it  was  in  1865.  In  Italy  during  this 
short  interval  the  proportion  of  births  to  every  1000  of  the  popu- 
lation fell  from  38'3  to  36'9  ;  in  Prussia  it  fell  from  39'1  to  36'3  ; 
in  Bavaria  from  36*9  to  36*2  ;  in  the  Netherlands  from  35*9  to 
35'1  j  in  Switzerland  from  35'5  to  32'5 ;  in  Belgium  from  31'4  to 
30'5 ;  in  England  from  35'5  to  33 '7  ;  in  Scotland  and  Ireland  the 
birth-rate  fell  to  the  same  level  as  the  French,  namely,  from  24*9 
to  23 '6  per  1000.  Moreover,  in  England  and  Wales  the  number 
of  births  in  1888  was  the  smallest  on  record  since  1876,  and  the 
report  of  the  Registrar-General  for  the  first  quarter  of  1890  showed 
that  the  English  birth-rate  had  fallen  to  30  per  1000,  a  proportion 
higher  that  the  French  rate,  it  is  true,  but  much  lower  than  that 
shown  for  all  the  preceding  years. 

Belgium  offers  a  similar  example.  Here  the  birth-rate  was 
only  29-4  per  1000  in  1888,  as  compared  with  30'3  in  1885  and 
32'1  in  the  period  comprised  between  1871  and  1880.  In  1840  it 
was  34*2,  and  the  fact  is  worthy  of  some  remark  that  it  is  par- 
ticularly in  the  Walloon  provinces,  which  contain  the  largest 
proportion  of  educated  persons  and  those  who  are  in  easy  and 
comfortable  circumstances,  that  the  birth-rate  is  low,  while  it 
remains  comparatively  high  in  the  Flemish  provinces,  which  are  not 
characterised  by  the  same  degree  of  material  ease  and  well-being. 

In  France  the  only  departments  in  which  a  high  birth-rate  is 
observable  are  the  poorest,  namely,  Morbihan,  Finistere,  Cdtes  du 
Nord,  Lozere,  Corsica,  Aveyron,  La  Vend6e,  Landes  and  the  Nord,  and 
the  Pas  de  Calais,  where  a  large  number  of  Belgians  are  to  be  found. 

A  German  newspaper,  the  Frankfurter  Zeitung,  which  did  us 
the  honour  of  criticising  an  article  we  wrote  on  this  important 
question  in  the  Journal  des  Ddbats,  affirmed  that  we  had  failed  to 
furnish  a  shadow  of  proof  in  support  of  our  theory  that  the 
development  of  the  general  well-being,  and  the  democratic  con- 
dition of  society  tend  to  bring  about  a  diminution  in  the  birth-rate. 
It  would  appear  that  our  German  confrere  is  hard  to  convince,  as 
we  should  have  thought  that  an  enumeration  of  the  departments 


APPENDIX  III 


343 


is  in  itself  a  proof  of  our  assertion.  The  generality  of  these 
departments  is  signalised  by  moderate  rates  of  wages,  in  many 
cases  very  low,  by  a  somewhat  low  standard  of  education,  and  a 
very  moderate  school  attendance.  If  we  compare  two  maps,  one 
showing  the  departments  classified  according  to  the  number  of 
married  couples  who  have  received  a  certain  education,  and  the 
other  the  departments  classified  according  to  the  birth-rate,  we 
should  find  that  these  two  maps  would  be  almost  the  reverse  one 
of  the  other.  We  do  not  for  a  moment  assert  that  there  are  not 
certain  exceptions,  although  there  is  not  a  single,  one  of  what  we 
may  term  the  educated  department  appearing  in  those  characterised 
by  a  high  birth-rate ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  greater  part  of 
the  latter,  as  for  example  Brittany,  Haute  Vienne,  Aveyron,  and 
Corsica,  figure  among  the  less -educated  departments.  Neither  do 
we  affirm  that  education  is  the  sole  factor  which  reduces  the  birth- 
rate, as  this  is  only  one  of  the  factors  which,  combined  with 
material  ease,  less  fervid  religious  sentiments,  and  an  ardent  desire 
to  attain  a  higher  and  better  material  standard,  form  an  aggrega- 
tion of  intellectual  and  moral  qualities  which  are  little  favourable 
to  a  high  birth-rate. 

It  is  the  same  in  Belgium.  We  have  already  called  attention 
to  the  fact  that  in  the  Walloon  provinces  the  birth-rate  is  infinitely 
weaker  than  in  the  Flemish  provinces,  while  in  the  former  there  is  a 
higher  standard  of  education  ;  and,  moreover,  wages  are  also  higher. 
The  subjoined  tabular  statement  will  show  this  very  clearly : — 


Number  of  Persons 

Average  Daily  Wages 

able  to 

of 

Number  of  Births 

Bead  and  Write 

Agricultural 

per  TOO 

per  100 
Of  the  Population. 

Labourers  (Men) 
without  Board. 

of  the  Population. 

Flemish  Provinces  — 

*.       d. 

Antwerp         .        . 

59-41 

1      2 

8-52 

Flanders,  West      . 

62-87 

1      5i 

8-17 

East 

51-68 

1      4 

8-12 

Limbourg       .        . 

57-68 

1      8J 

2-95 

Mixed  Province— 

Brabant          .        • 

58-47 

1      *i 

2-98 

Walloon  Provinces  — 

Hainault        .        . 

54-88 

1     11 

2-43 

Liege      .        .        . 

61-88 

1     Hi 

276 

Luxembourg  .        . 

73-42 

i   114 

2-54 

Namur  .         .         . 

70-21 

2      1J 

2-34 

344  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION 

The  above  table  has  been  prepared  from  the  data  supplied  by 
the  Annuaire  de  Statistique  de  la  Belgique  for  1889;  the  figures 
relating  to  education  and  wages  refer  to  the  year  1880,  no  later 
data  being  available,  while  the  birth-rates  are  for  the  year  1888. 
It  shows  that  in  all  the  Flemish  provinces  the  birth-rate  is  high, 
education  little  advanced,  and  wages  low,  similar  conditions  being 
observable  in  Brabant ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  in  the  Walloon 
provinces  the  birth-rate  is  very  low,  wages  are  much  higher,  and, 
with  the  exception  of  Hainault,  where  there  are  a  large  number  of 
coal  mines,  education  is  much  more  advanced.  Thus  we  may  take 
it  that  in  general  (but  we  are  not  prepared  to  say  that  it  is  an 
absolute  rule  without  exception)  a  low  birth-rate  goes  hand  in 
hand  with  high  wages  and  the  spread  of  education.  It  also 
appears  to  be  particularly  associated  with  democratic  aspirations, 
and  still  more  with  a  lessening  of  religious  belief  on  the  part  of 
the  people,  and  a  modification  of  the  old  ideas  of  resignation  and 
submission  to  their  lot. 

Thus  what  it  has  been  agreed  to  call  civilisation,  which  is 
really  the  development  of  material  ease,  of  education,  of  equality, 
and  of  aspirations  to  rise  and  to  succeed  in  life,  has  undoubtedly 
conduced  to  a  diminution  of  the  birth-rate. 

It  cannot  be  said  that  this  falling  off  in  the  number  of  births, 
if  it  only  brings  in  its  train  a  smaller  increase  and  not  a  diminu- 
tion of  the  population  in  the  old  countries,  is  an  actual  misfortune, 
for  the  human  race  cannot  go  on  indefinitely  increasing  on  a  planet 
which  itself  does  not  increase.  But  in  the  present  condition  of  the 
world,  now  that  so  many  lands  are  insufficiently  populated,  and 
that  nations  have  established  a  forced  military  service,  and  are 
ready  at  any  moment  to  declare  war  one  with  the  other,  this 
reduction  of  births,  particularly  when  it  manifests  itself  in  a 
country  like  France  for  example,  must  certainly  be  regarded  as  a 
relative  misfortune.  In  one  respect  it  is  particularly  unfortunate. 
This  is  that  in  the  case  of  a  family  consisting  of  one  or  two 
children,  the  excessive  tenderness  of  the  parents,  their  perpetual 
fears  of  misfortune  happening  to  their  offspring,  and  the  manner 
in  which  the  latter  are  frequently  indulged,  have  the  effect  of 
depriving  the  male  children  of  any  spirit  of  boldness  and  enter- 
prise and  of  any  power  of  endurance.  From  this  evil  France  is 
suffering  at  the  present  day. 


APPENDIX  III  345 


This  is  no  reason  why  a  nation  with  a  medium  density  of 
population,  such  as  France,  should  consider  the  stagnation  of  its 
population  as  a  circumstance  in  itself  wholly  insignificant,  and  one 
not  calling  for  any  special  notice.  This  stagnation,  for  reasons  to 
which  we  have  already  called  attention  at  the  commencement  of 
this  review,  is  sufficiently  regrettable.  But  the  question  arises  how 
is  it  to  be  remedied  ?  The  cause  of  it  lies  in  the  new  mental  con- 
dition of  the  population,  and  it  is  very  difficult  to  change  by  laws 
or  regulations  the  mental  condition  of  a  people. 

Certain  suggestions  have  been  made ,  which  are  absolutely 
ludicrous  in  themselves — such  for  example  as  the  special  taxation 
of  the  unmarried.  This  was  tried  under  the  Eomans,  but  without 
effect.  Moreover,  when  the  law  presumes  to  punish  persons  for 
acts  which  are  in  themselves  morally  lawful,  then  it  strikes  at  the 
liberty  of  the  subject.  It  would  soon  be  found  that  the  generality 
of  the  persons  unmarried  had  very  good  reasons  for  remaining  so, 
either  infirmity,  weakness  of  constitution,  want  of  position,  poverty, 
and  sometimes  they  would  be  actuated  by  moral  considerations  of 
the  highest  order.  A  government,  therefore,  which  would  be  ill- 
advised  enough  to  adopt  such  an  absurd  system  of  taxation, 
would  very  speedily  be  swept  from  power  by  the  force  of  public 
indignation. 

And,  moreover,  it  is  not  in  the  insufficiency  of  marriages  that 
the  evil  liea  In  France  there  are  almost  as  many  marriages  as 
elsewhere — at  the  present  time  the  proportion  is  in  the  ratio  of  7 '4 
to  every  1000  of  the  population — as  compared  with  7*8  in  the 
period  comprised  between  1821  and  1830.  The  French  marriage- 
rate  is  higher  therefore  than  the  Belgian,  where  there  are  7'1 
marriages  only  per  1000  inhabitants — but  in  the  latter  country  the 
infant  population  is  much  greater. 

The  evil  consists  in  the  small  number  of  children  to  each  family 
— the  number  in  France  being  one,  two,  or  three,  where  foreigners 
have  four,  five,  and  six.  Does  it  therefore  follow  that  it  is 
necessary  to  give  a  bounty  to  those  persons  in  France  who  have  six 
or  seven  children  ?  This  is  another  very  doubtful  remedy.  In  the 
first  place  it  is  not  the  sixth  or  seventh  child  whose  birth  it  is 
desirable  to  encourage,  it  is  rather  the  third  or  fourth.  Families 
consisting  of  six  or  seven  children  are  so  very  rare  that  if  they  had 
an  additional  one  or  two  it  would  result  in  but  an  insignificant 


346  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION 

increase  to  the  population,  and  to  give  bounties  to  the  third  or 
fourth  child  it  would  be  necessary,  in  order  that  the  rewards  should 
be  efficacious,  that  an  addition  of  hundreds  of  millions  of  francs 
should  be  made  to  the  budget.  We  are,  however,  very  far  from 
saying  that  it  would  not  be  possible  by  judicious  and  inexpensive 
measures,  by  a  good  use  of  scholarships,  of  dispensations  from 
military  service  and  other  expedients,  to  reduce  to  some  extent  the 
burdens  of  large  families. 

We  are  by  no  means  disposed  to  recommend  the  re-establish- 
ment of  so-called  tours,  that  is  official  foundling  receptacles,  as  we 
regard  these  as  both  immoral  and  inefficacious,  but  we  are  at  the 
same  time  quite  prepared  to  admit  that  charitable  societies  might 
establish  them  under  certain  circumstances,  if  they  were  disposed 
to  devote  their  time  and  their  money  to  this  object. 

The  true  remedies,  or  rather  the  useful  palliatives,  are  to  be 
sought  elsewhere.  It  is  above  all  necessary  to  modify  the  spirit  of 
our  primary  education,  and  more  particularly  of  the  teachers  in  our 
public  schools ;  the  school  itself  should  in  a  far  lesser  degree 
stimulate  the  ambition  of  the  pupil,  the  desire  to  put  forth  the 
whole  strength  in  the  endeavour  to  succeed  in  the  race  of  life,  and 
to  attain  a  high  standard  of  material  well-being.  The  scholastic 
aim  ought  to  be  rather  directed  to  the  inculcation  in  the  minds  of 
the  pupils,  if  not  of  contentment  with  their  lot,  at  least  of  more 
modest  ideas,  and  of  resignation  to  manual  labour.  The  primary 
school  of  the  present  day,  by  the  shortsightedness  of  the  teachers, 
the  folly  of  the  scholastic  programme,  and  the  wild  ideas  that 
appear  to  have  taken  possession  of  those  who  have  control  of  our 
educational  system,  is  rapidly  leading  to  a  general  dfolassement,  to 
universal  ambition — and  ambition  is  certainly  opposed  to  the  con- 
traction of  marriages,  and  the  voluntary  acceptance  of  the  burdens 
of  a  family. 

It  is  above  all  necessary  to  curtail  the  time  that  children  are 
kept  at  school,  to  adapt  it  to  rural  or  industrial  occupations  in  such 
a  manner  that  families  may  derive  some  advantages  from  the 
labours  of  their  younger  members.  Formerly,  both  in  the  urban 
and  rural  districts,  children  as  young  as  7  or  8,  or  at  least  10  or  11, 
performed  certain  allotted  tasks.  We  admit  that  this  is  rather  an 
early  age  for  a  child  to  commence  work,  but  in  any  case  attendance 
at  school  should  not  be  obligatory  after  the  child  has  reached  the 
twelfth  year;  in  no  case  should  the  factories  and  workshops  in 


APPENDIX  III  347 


those  countries  which  have  experienced  the  need  of  an  increased 
population,  be  closed  to  the  child  who  is  over  1 2  years  of  age — and 
this  is  what  our  neighbours  the  English,  philanthropists  certainly, 
but  infinitely  more  practical  than  ourselves,  have  thoroughly 
realised.  In  the  same  way  laws  prohibiting  married  women,  and 
those  who  are  enceinte,  or  have  recently  been  confined,  fron? 
working,  are  instrumental  in  diminishing  the  population.  To 
return  however  to  the  scholastic  system,  there  is  no  doubt  thai 
discipline  should  certainly  be  relaxed  in  the  rural  districts,  and 
more  especially  at  the  harvest  time,  and  that  classes  composed  of 
children  of  a  certain  age  should  be  allowed  to  absent  themselves  in 
summer. 

A  kind  of  ridiculous  pedantry  would  seem  for  some  years  past 
to  have  found  its  way  into  everything.  It  is  useful  to  know  how 
to  read  and  to  write,  and  to  have  some  knowledge  of  history  and 
geography,  but  to  acquire  these  rudiments  it  surely  is  not  necessary 
to  devote  long  years  of  study  and  application  ;  and,  moreover,  it  is 
infinitely  more  useful  that  men  should  acquire  at  an  early  age  a 
taste  for  those  things  which  are  to  occupy  them  all  their  lives,  that 
families  should  increase,  and  that  the  population  should  not  be 
enfeebled.  The  regulations  respecting  apprenticeship,  by  reason  of 
the  introduction  of  too  much  idealism,  are  also  becoming  inept. 
It  is  desired  that  the  apprentice  should  not  render  any  personal 
service  to  the  master,  but  then  apprenticeship  becomes  too  burden- 
some, and  there  is  an  end  of  the  system. 

Again,  it  may  be  asked  if  all  the  young  girls  who  have  adopted 
liberal  or  semi -liberal  careers  are  not  more  or  less  condemned  to 
celibacy?  It  would  be  curious  to  have  a  census  enumeration  of 
public  school-mistresses,  married  and  single,  and  of  females  holding 
government  appointments.  We  are  of  opinion  that  the  proportion 
of  unmarried  women  occupying  these  positions  is  much  greater  than 
in  the  generality  of  females,  the  reason  being  that  the  majority  of 
young  girls  who  are  appointed  to  these  posts  frequently  look  down 
upon  the  simple  workman  or  peasant,  and  moreover  as  they  are 
frequently  being  moved  from  place  to  place,  they  have  not  the  same 
opportunities  of  contracting  matrimonial  alliances  as  others. 

We  need  hardly  point  out  that  it  is  far  from  our  intention  to 
condemn  either  education  in  general,  or  that  of  women  in  particular, 
but  rather  is  it  our  desire  to  point  out  simply  what  appears  to  be 
necessary  to  improve  and  to  modify  its  tendencies.  Every  age  is 


348 


SOCIAL  EVOLUTION 


characterised  by  its  particular  craze.  The  present  craze  is  for 
education,  unlimited  and  injudicious,  and  for  philanthropy  equally 
unlimited  and  injudicious,  both  absolutely  superficial.  By  their 
aid  we  have  succeeded  in  producing  a  mental  condition  and  in 
creating  certain  social  circumstances  which  are  most  unfavourable 
to  the  growth  of  the  population. 

In  conclusion,  we  may  observe  that  the  most  efficacious  remedy 
is,  for  a  country  like  France,  which  has  many  attractions  for 
foreigners,  to  obtain  the  naturalisation  of  from  50,000  to  100,000 
aliens  annually.  By  this  means  the  number  of  inhabitants  would 
be  increased,  and  the  reproductive  power  of  the  country  would,  at 
the  same  time,  be  largely  augmented. 


THE  KND 


THE   DISTRIBUTION    OF  WEALTH. 

BY 

JOHN     R.    COMMONS. 

I2mo.     pp.   258.     $1.75. 

"To  a  better  understanding  of  the  economic  problems  of  the  day 
Professor  Commons  offers  a  valuable  contribution."  —  Philadelphia 
Record. 

"This  work  of  Professor  Commons  will  be  of  value  to  the  science 
of  economics  both  from  the  theoretical  standpoint  and  in  its  practical 
aspects.  His  reasoning  is  clear,  and  free  from  mere  logomachy  (a  ra«-e 
thing  in  works  of  this  kind),  and  his  conclusions  are  of  an  eminently 
practical  character." — Public  Opinion. 

"One  of  the  best-known  writers  of  the  day  is  Professor  John  R. 
Commons  of  Indiana  University,  and  his  just-published  treatise  on 
'  The  Distribution  of  Wealth '  is  sure  to  attract  attention.  Clear-cut 
and  vigorous  in  style,  he  cuts  a  clear  line  through  a  tangled  jungle  of 
conflicting  opinions,  leaving  no  doubt  whatever  as  to  his  own  views, 
which  he  defends  with  clear  logic  and  at  the  same  time  a  due  regard 
for  the  opinions  of  others." — Boston  Daily  Advertiser. 

"  A  very  notable  contribution  to  the  literature  of  political  economy 
is  the  volume  by  John  R.  Commons  of  the  Indiana  University.  It  is, 
in  fact,  applied  political  economy.  The  author  is  not  content  with 
making  clear  his  theory  of  wealth  and  its  distribution,  but  goes  on  to 
discuss  some  of  the  every-day  phenomena  connected  with  distribution. 
.  .  .  There  is  much  that  is  stimulating  and  suggestive  in  this  book  even 
to  the  reader  little  skilled  in  the  niceties  of  economic  discussion.  Its 
author  has  not  lost  himself  in  the  verbiage  of  pure  economics.  He  is 
ever  discussing  some  problem  of  vital  importance,  of  live  and  present 
interest.  His  chapters  on  the  factors  in  distribution  is  particularly 
clearly  reasoned  and  suggestive.  The  book  deserves  a  place  in  the 
library  of  every  one  interested  in  current  social  and  economic  topics."— 
Chicago  Times. 


MACMIILAN  AND  CO., 

66    FIFTH    AVENUE,  NEW  YORK. 


Labour  and  the  Popular  Welfare. 


BY 

W.    H.    MALLOCK. 

I2mo.     pp.  336.    $2.00. 


"The  average  man  could  not  peruse  this  work  of  Mr.  Mallock  with- 
out a  great  and  useful  increase  iu  his  knowledge  and  ability  to  form  a 
correct  idea  of  the  conditions  that  must  be  taken  into  account  in  reason- 
ing correctly  on  the  labor  problem." — Chicago  Tribune. 

"Some  of  the  positions  taken  in  this  essay  will  provoke  opposition, 
and,  as  a  matter  of  course,  many  of  its  conclusions  will  be  disputed  ; 
but  the  work  is  one  of  peculiar  suggestiveness  and  power,  and  it  ought 
to  have  a  wide  reading  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic." — Philadelpliia 
Erening  Bulletin. 

"It  is  an  excursion  into  the  true  domain  of  political  economy  as  the 
progressive  science  of  human  nature  ;  but  it  is  as  fresh  and  exhilarating 
as  a  journey  into  a  new  country.  By  what  sort  of  social  legislation  may 
the  incomes  of  the  great  mass  of  the  community  be  made  in  the  first 
place  more  constant,  and  in  the  second  place  increased?  This  is  tho 
question  which  the  author  discusses  with  charm  of  style,  lucidity  of 
treatment,  and  genuine  sympathy  for  the  poorer  classes.  .  .  .  His  book 
is  a  remarkable  contribution  to  the  economic  literature  of  the  day,  is 
written  in  a  popular  vein,  and  can  hardly  fail  to  exert  a  wholesome  and 
beneficial  influence  upon  public  thought." — Neic  York  Tribune. 


Homes  of  the  London  Poor. 


BY 

OCTAVIA    HILL 

Paper.    40  cento. 


"  It  is  impossible  to  speak  too  highly  of  Miss  Hill's  work,  or  to  pass 
over  the  opportunity  of  wishing  her  success  in  it." — The  London 
Academy. 


MACMILLAN  AND  CO. 

66  FIFTH  AVENUE.  NEW  YORK. 


Life  and  Labour  of  the  People  in  London. 

EDITED   BY 

CHARLES    BOOTH. 

In  four  volumes,  each  $1.25. 

Vol.      I.  East,  Central,  and  South  London. 

II.  Streets  and  Population  Classified. 

III.  Blocks  of  Buildings,  Schools,  and  Immigration. 

IV.  East  London  Industries. 


"For  several  years  past  Mr.  Charles  Booth  has  been  making  an 
investigation  of  the  condition  of  the  poor  iu  London,  showing  by  means 
of  tables  and  carefully-prepared  statistics  the  numerical  relation  which 
poverty,  misery,  and  depravity  bear  to  regular  earnings  and  com- 
parative comfort,  and  describing  the  general  conditions  under  which 
each  class  lives.  ...  It  is  a  work  of  remarkable  interest.  It  is  one  in 
which  imagination  plays  no  part ;  only  facts  and  figures  find  place  in  it." 
— Boston  Transcript. 


PAUPERISM:  A  PICTURE; 

AND 

The  Endowment  of  Old  Age:  an  Argument. 

BY 

CHARLES    BOOTH. 

I2mo.     pp.  335.     $1.25. 

1 

"  Mr.  Charles  Booth  is  one  of  the  strongest  and  most  trustworthy 
authorities  on  English  pauperism,  and  he  has  added  not  the  least  of  his 
valuable  services  to  the  relief  of  poverty  by  the  thorough  and  many- 
sided  discussion  of  the  subject  presented  in  this  volume." — The  Inde- 
pendent. 

MACMILLAN  AND  CO., 

66  FIFTH  AVENUE,  NEW  YORK. 


A   HISTORY  OF   SOCIALISM. 


BY 

THOMAS    KIRKUP. 

I2mo.     pp.  301.     $2.00. 


"A  careful,  clear,  and  sympathetic  account  of  the  Socialist  move- 
ment."— The  Economic  Journal. 

"Nothing  has  been  written  for  a  good  many  years  on  the  subject  of 
Socialism  that  can  compare  in  literary  merit  and  adaptation  to  popular 
needs  with  the  little  volume  from  the  pen  of  Thomas  Kirkup.  We  have 
here,  in  the  compass  of  about  300  pages,  a  concise  view  of  the  whole 
socialistic  field.  .  .  .  The  book,  besides  being  a  model  of  accurate  state- 
ment, is  eminently  fair  and  judicial  in  its  treatment  of  some  of  the  most 
vexed  questions  of  modern  times. " — Boston  Advertiser. 

"  The  design  of  this  volume  is  to  set  forth  the  leading  phases  of 
historic  Socialism  and  furnish  a  criticism  of  the  movement  as  a  whole. 
The  author  writes  in  a  calm  tone  and  a  readable  style.  .  .  .  The  volume 
is  a  temperate  exhibition  of  one  of  the  most  remarkable  features  of  our 
time,  proceeding  from  competent  knowledge  and  marked  by  careful 
discrimination." — New  York  Observer. 

' '  Mr.  Kirkup's  book  is  well  worth  reading,  as  it  is  the  matured  work  of 
a  thinker  who  is  careful  in  his  statements  and  conservative  in  reaching 
conclusions,  its  great  merits  are  its  perfect  clearness  and  fairness. " — 
San  Francisco  Chronicle. 

"  This  is  an  able  and  interesting  work,  such  as  every  one  interested 
in  ethics  and  economics  will  desire  for  his  library.  .  .  .  Mr.  Kirkup  has. 
modestly  entitled  his  volume  a  history,  when  in  reality  it  is  much  more 
than  is  usually  included  in  that  term.  To  a  calm  and  lucid  exposition 
of  the  prominent  traits  of  the  various  systems  he  has  added  a  critical 
consideration  thereof,  which  has  the  same  uncommon  element  of  judicial 
good  sense  which  is  characteristic  of  the  entire  volume."— Boston  Com- 
mercial Bulletin. 


MACMILLAN   AND  CO., 

66  FIFTH  AVENUE,  1OIW  YORK. 


ESSAYS  ON 
QUESTIONS   OF  THE   DAY 

POLITICAL  AND   SOCIAL. 


BY 

COLDWIN  SMITH,  D.C.L. 

I2mo.    $2.25. 


"The  matured  productions  of  a  cultured  and  brilliant  thinker  on 
topics  of  current  interest." — New  York  Observer. 

"Professor  Goldwin  Smith  is  a  sound  and  logical  thinker,  a  careful 
student  of  affairs  in  their  international  relations,  and  his  opinions  on 
all  the  subjects  he  undertakes  to  deal  with  are  \vorth  listening  to  with 
respect ;  moreover,  he  is  a  forcible  and  lucid  writer." — The  Beacon. 

"...  Goldwin  Smith's  bright  and  sparkling,  yet  deep  and  thought- 
ful, essays.  Of  all  recent  books  of  its  kind  this  is  the  strongest  and 
most  original  in  thought  and  presentation.  Professor  Smith  is  a  writer 
too  well  known  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic  to  need  any  analysis  or 
praise  of  his  engaging  style,  or  any  proof  of  the  earnestness  and  integ- 
rity of  his  thought  and  the  richness  of  his  knowledge,  alike  of  history 
and  of  human  nature  in  all  times.  He  arouses,  perhaps,  nearly  as  much 
opposition  as  he  secures  acceptance  whenever  he  touches  pen  to  paper, 
but  he  writes  always  in  a  way  that  interests  and  suggests  even  when  he 
does  not  convince." — The  Providence  Journal. 

"  All  the  questions  are  treated  ably  and  thoughtfully,  and  with  a- 
comprehensive  grasp  and  fairness  of  statement  that  carry  weight  and 
demand  a  respectful  hearing.  His  present  volume  is  a  notable  contri- 
bution to  the  intelligent,  honest,  and  candid  consideration  of  the  vital 
questions  that  are  rending  the  nations.  ...  In  just  such  trained  obser- 
vation, straightforward  thinking,  and  manly  and  forcible  expression  of 
opinion  lie  help  and  safety  for  the  future,  and  the  debt  of  all  thought- 
ful citizens  to  such  writers  as  Goldwin  Smith  cannot  be  too  fully 
realized." — The  Christian  Advocate. 


MACMILLAN   AND   CO., 

66  FIFTH  AVENUE,  NEW  YOKK» 


An  Introduction  to  Social  Philosophy. 


BY 

JOHN    S.    MACKENZIE. 

8vo.     $2.60. 


"  The  most  important  contribution  that  has  recently  been  made  to 
the  elucidation  of  the  social  problem." — Religio- Philosophical  Journal. 

"  This  volume  represents  the  fruits  of  diversified  and  extensive 
study  in  the  different  subjects  with  which  social  philosophy  is  con- 
nected, and  abounds  in  careful  and  discriminating  statements  of  the 
relations  which  the  studies  that  bear  upon  human  well-being  bear  to 
one  another." — The  Christian  Union. 

"The  philosophic  mind  will  find  here,  if  not  much  novelty  of  origi- 
nal suggestion,  a  review  of  the  chief  topics  of  society,  made  by  a  man 
of  fine  and  deep  culture,  who  has  the  rare  merit  of  uniting  comprehen- 
sion, strength,  and  candor.  .  .  .  Mr.  Mackenzie  writes  with  a  fulness  of 
knowledge  and  ripeness  of  wisdom  that  will  commend  themselves  most 
to  those  who  have  read  widely  in  the  social  literature  of  the  day.  The 
volume  will  be  delightful  and  stimulating." — The  Literary  World. 

'  •  Mr.  Mackenzie  rightly  says  that  what  naturally  concerns  the  social 
philosopher  most  deeply  is  the  absence  of  any  adequate  recognition  of 
the  study  of  social  science,  including  economics,  politics,  and  the  theory 
of  education.  ...  He  touches  his  subject  on  every  side ;  .  - .  .  one  is 
struck  with  the  force  of  his  comments.  He  is  working  on  right  lines, 
and  his  book  is  one  that  all  persons  interested  in  this  subject  will  have 
to  read." — The  Boston  Herald. 

"A well-meant  attempt  to  bring  some  order  out  of  the  chaos  of 
schemes  for  the  reconstruction  of  society.  After  an  extended  critical 
review  of  philosophic  methods  and  the  relations  of  the  different  depart- 
ments of  philosophy  to  each  other,  a  glance  is  taken  at  the  development 
of  society  as  shown  in  history,  and  the  different  theories  of  society  are 
considered  upon  a  careful  examination  of  the  theory  that  society  is  an 
organism.  .  .  .  The  details  are  worked  out  in  a  suggestive  and  interest- 
ing manner,  and  the  whole  discussion  is  marked  with  scholarship  as  well 
as  good  sense." — The  Independent. 


MACMILLAN  AND  CO., 

66  FIFTH  AVENUE,  NEW  YOEK. 


University  of  California 

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405  Hilgard  Avenue,  Los  Angeles,  CA  90024-1388 

Return  this  material  to  the  library 

from  which  it  was  borrowed. 


JUM  1  8 


..^.SOUTHERN  R, 


A     n  ri  n  n  70  "' 


